Fathers
by Sunbird Riding Shotgun
Summary: Found You" two words bring back a nightmare twenty years buried in Eliot's past. As things spiral out of control the team is forced to face who it was who made them who they are. Nate/Eliot.
1. Chapter 1: Found You

**Notes:** This is set in my Black King White Knight! Universe and will make more sense if you have read the story collection posted here by that title (or, if you havn't/don't feel like reading the whole thing, have at least read Not Going Anywhere, Stay, and Blessed Be the Cracked which are chapters in said story). It also may make more sense if you've read my story Cell Number Eight. This is a Nate/Eliot story. Be warned.

**Note the Second:** Cannon-wise this story takes place after the Tap-Out Job but before The Order 23 Job.

* * *

**Fathers  
**_Chapter One: Found You_

* * *

Josephine Phillips opened her eyes, holding up a hand to shade them when the bright rays of morning sunshine through the windows nearly blinded her. It took her a moment to process what was wrong before she sighed. Her children always got her up to make them breakfast before they went off to school and with Scott away on business until Tuesday there was no way they'd just woken him up.

Which meant they'd probably overslept. Again.

You'd think they were in high school the way Marie and El carried on, not in fourth and sixth grade and getting up at the brutal hour of eight in the morning.

She sat up and stretched, shaking her head but smiling indulgently. She really would have to put her foot down one of these days. Or call their uncle and have him put his foot down for her. She and Scott were just too good natured sometimes.

"Hunny, time to get up." She called as she opened the door to her son's room.

His bed was empty, a note left on the pillow in a agitated script she knew more from nightmare than memory. Two words that had haunted her dreams since childhood of cat and mouse games her big brother always lost.

"Found You."

**oOo**

Parker loved Wednesdays, especially now that she was working with the team. Before the days of the week hadn't really mattered that much to Parker except for the closing hours of places so it had taken awhile to get used to the nine to five five days a week at the office (well, eleven to whenever after fiveish they felt like going home) when they weren't doing a special job elsewhere. Supposedly, back when they had offices, it was to keep up appearances, though Parker guessed Nate was trying to keep them out of trouble. It had taken awhile but she, and everyone else had gotten used to it. Now Parker had a feeling Nate wished they weren't so used to it that they ended up in his place about as often as they'd been in the offices. Parker hoped he got used to it eventually because she'd learned to love every unique weekday's little treat and didn't want to give it up.

Mondays were for catching up and gardening and working on her harness stuff. After all it normally had been more than a day since she'd seen the others and Hardison or Eliot normally had some cool stories from over the weekend. Then she had to see to her plant Simon and tell him his weekly story and play some music to help him grow (Hardison had helped her pick out a living plant so Simon actually did grow unlike Melvin) which meant she had to put him on Nate's upstairs windowsill for awhile to give him privacy since he was shy. She'd work on the designs for her most recent harness project and just relax and wait until nightfall so she could test it out without scaring the neighbors (which Nate had pointedly ordered her not to do).

Tuesdays were also good. Parker wasn't sure why. They were a lot like Mondays only without anything special or new. But she had a strange fondness for Tuesdays.

Thursdays were the days Eliot took it upon himself to try to teach the rest of them some basic self defense in his studio so when Parker wasn't "Dancing" with Eliot she got to watch him and Hardison go at it and she cheered on her boys with encouragements and the occasional order to kiss which went ignored.

She might have to stop that now that she knew Eliot and Nate were a thing. Sophie had told her awhile ago that it wasn't good to encourage people to be faithful to a lover. Or was it unfaithful?

Did normal people really pray to their lovers?

She'd have to ask Sophie.

Fridays were nearly the best. Nate had used to let them leave early and then they'd meet up later at Hardison's place or a bar or somewhere fun for team bonding that might boil over into the next day. Now they normally went downstairs to the bar to do much the same.

But Wednesday…

Wednesday was the day of the weekly Staff Meeting.

She loved the staff meeting.

Between Eliot grumbling and purposefully getting to Nate's late, Sophie puttering about, Nate needing a refill on his drink, Hardison needing a refill by the time Nate and Eliot were sitting down, and everybody pointedly ignoring Parker bringing Simon to the meeting it was nearly eleven thirty before the eleven o'clock meeting started. Back at the office Nate had started building in an extra forty-five minute "Welcome" period into the meetings so they would still be sort of on schedule by the time everything was said and done. Nowdays Parker was pretty sure he was just happy if they were all in the general vicinity by noon.

Which was around when they were actually getting their act together on this particular Wednesday.

"These are your new passwords and security codes to our network, security systems, and company safe houses." Hardison started, passing file folders around the table with the usual security briefing he insisted holding every other week. "I'll be collectin' the end."

"Oh, Eliot. I have the book you lent me." She reached for her purse, bringing the meeting swiftly out of the business part into what tended to make up the staff meeting.

Members of the "staff" meeting.

"You know I just met someone who had a first edition Sherlock Holmes he needs to get off his hands. I've been meaning to ask if you'd be interested in it?"

"Hey Parker, you wanna come over later?" Hardison asked across the table. "I gotta sweet new sound system."

"Is it sugary?"

"Is it A Study in Scarlet? I heard a copy of that was stolen."

"Why am I not surprised?" Nate asked, humor in his voice.

Hardison had recovered from his shock at Parker's reply to give one of his own. "No. It's not sugary. It's cool. Awesome. Girl there is somthin' wrong with you."

"That's what I say." Eliot agreed, like all of them easily following every train of the interlocking conversation. Okay, so maybe

"I'm seriously starting to agree with ya man."

"I don't know." Sophie interjected. "You're American slang can be quite difficult to follow at times."

"All I said was that it was sweet! I- NATE!"

Nate took another sip of his coffee, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Parker didn't think he enjoyed these as much as she did.

"It's sort of like you and you'r-"

Eliot and Hardison both turned to Sophie with a matching glare that almost dared her to complete that insult toward football.

There was dead silence, well discounting Parker whispering to Simon that she should bring popcorn to the next staff meeting, when a cell phone went off.

The tension broke and Eliot answered, his face transforming from mildly annoyed to concerned and he left the apartment without a second glance. "woah, slow down there. Tell me whats up…" His voice trailed after him as he made his way to his office.

There was a moment of silence and they all waited for Eliot to return for a second before slowly the staff meeting minus one continued. Though with Nate watching the door and nodding at the appropriate occasions it might have been the meeting minus two.

**oOo**

It was a little before one and they'd finally managed to get through the rest of the topics they needed to cover at the staff meeting when Nate called an end to the meeting. Eliot hadn't reappeared and Nate was starting to get a little worried.

They were just beginning to break apart to go to their normal activities when Eliot returned to the apartment, his travel bag slung over one shoulder and posture tense. "I got business to take care of. May be a little while. Call my cell if you need me." Was all the explanation gave before he turned and headed back for the door.

Nate sidestepped, putting himself between Eliot and the door. "Whats going on?" They wouldn't break rule number eight but every instinct in Nate was screaming at him not to let Eliot go out that door. Something was going down and when Eliot turned wild blue eyes on Nate he felt his heart almost stop.

He had seen Eliot worried, concerned, anxious, even scared. Hell he'd seen more of scared Eliot than probably any other person alive.

But right now Eliot looked haunted.

No. Not haunted.

Hunted.

Like something that was trying to decide weather to flee from a predator or stand and fight. There was old terror there.

Nate waited a breath, then another one. He waited, silently praying that Eliot would say something. Eliot didn't say goodbye when he left for jobs. He said when he'd be back.

When he didn't say when he'd be back, or where and when they would meet up, it was because he didn't plan on that happening.

Eliot closed the gap between them, placing a hand against Nate's chest but never once breaking eye contact. The silence stretched a moment longer, breath loud in Nate's ears though weather it was his own or Eliot's he didn't know.

Eliot's lips moved a moment and stilled before his hand moved to the back of Nate's neck, pulling him close and whispering in his ear. "Knight to H-7. Queen's gambit declined." Then he turned and was out the door.

In the shock of the empty silence that followed his departure Nate closed his eyes, seeing the chess game they kept going in their heads for when they couldn't sit down to play a game. He moved Eliot's knight, already knowing what he'd find.

The move left the knight open and waiting, trapped between Nate's rook and black knight. Either piece Nate moved Eliot's white Knight was going to be taken.


	2. Chapter 2: Phillips, Lawrence, Spencer

**Notes: **The way this chapter ends is actually how this whole story got started. A plot bunny bit me and I wrote the recordings and I had to figure out somthing to put them in and well... this happened.  
**Note the second:** I actually started writting this during the break between seasons so, while I'm doing my best to fix the minor inconsitancies the major ones (the new HQ not really being offices) would take some work and change the flow a bit. So some minor creative licence here is going to have to go a long way until I have an OCD afternoon off (or, you know, even just a regular afternoon off) and fix this.

* * *

**Fathers  
**_Phillips, Lawrence, and Spencer_

* * *

Nate once said he knew his father best by comings and goings. Growing up the Ford family had been poor. His father was an alcoholic, barely able to hold down a job and as likely to spend his wage on drink as on his family. Half the reason Nate had been the catholic he was was that there had been plenty of times in his childhood that their church was the only reason he and his mother hadn't gone hungry.

Nate had never really been close to his father. When he was little his father had rarely been home before bedtime and spent most of the weekends gone on get rich quick schemes that never seemed to work. Then around the time Nate was eleven something seemed to work, or stick. His father started making money enough for them to live comfortable but started being gone away on road trips for days or weeks at a time.

But he was there for Nate's graduation from high school as valedictorian, so that was something right?

Something changed after that and maybe they started making amends after all those years. He liked that Nate was in seminary school. He liked that Nate was going to be a priest. He said he'd make a good father, that joking smile on his face that made Nate feel like the good son of a good father. For the first time in his life he was making his father proud and happy about it.

When he left Seminary school to marry Maggie his father was the first one he told. He'd been scared and confused and his father told him not to worry. He'd make a good father, whether it was as a priest or as a dad.

Things had gone so well. Things had been okay. To this date Nate still didn't understand why three years later he got a call from his mom at two in the morning saying his father had gotten a desperate call and all but ran out of the house without his jacket. He didn't understand why three days later his mom got a call from his father saying he was sorry. He didn't get why two days after that Nate was standing in the morgue of some little town in the middle of Kentucky identifying his father's body.

He didn't know why his father killed himself.

His mom was never the same after that. She never forgave herself for letting him run out that door that night without promising to come back.

**oOo**

The silence following Eliot's departure lasted for more than a minute. Everyone was in shock. No one knew what to do or what to make of what was happening.

Honestly, Nate probably wasn't really the first one to recover. He wouldn't recover from this until Eliot was safely back in his arms. He was however the one with the most driving need to do something to fix this, he was the one with an idea of how much hell was about to break loose. "Parker, follow him as long as you can. Go"

Parker went without a word, sprinting to catch up with her quarry.

Nate turned to the other two, more than aware that Rule Number Eight had likely just been broken with no chance of repair. The look on Sophie's face, somewhere between disbelief and growing anger, told him indeed yes. Hardison however looked unsurprised, well as unsurprised as this situation could reasonably allow. "Hardison?"

"I knew man." Hardison said, raising his hands in innocence. "You guys really need to learn that being sneaky mean having your cell phones off." Nate held back all reaction to this new information. He had more important things to deal with and maybe it was a good thing that he didn't have to deal with Hardison as well as Sophie. "Okay then, go find out where that call came from and find out what you can about who called him.

Hardison nodded, heading for the door. His hackers den had his best equipment and he likely knew things with Sophie were going to be distracting in the apartment. "I'll have something in an hour."

Nate turned to Sophie. "You have an hour and then we're finding out what's going on with Eliot."

Sophie nodded but was getting her voice back. "How long?"

"We had a few flings early on." Nate answered thinking back. "We shrugged it off as a fluke, or the latest twist in the weird relationship we've had since Cairo. It started getting serious after the miracle job. We got a place together right before we went down to do the Bank job. We broke it off when everyone split up but we got back together pretty quick afterwards."

She nodded looking away. He could see what she was thinking. That he'd been leading her on, even after things got serious, at least for a little while in little ways. Even if by the time he and Eliot were living together he wasn't the one initiating the advances he'd never told her he wasn't available. "You have every right to be angry." Nate said. "It was wrong and I know sorry isn't going to cut it. Just… know it was Eliot who kept saying we should tell you if no one else and me who kept saying no. It's not his fault. If you want to be mad at me I get it but please save it until after we know he's safe."

Sophie turned and walked away from Nate, staring at the ceiling and then the floor. He held his breath, waiting.

When she turned back to him her face was set. Not angry, just set. Determined. "We make sure he's safe. Make sure and then you and I are going to talk and then I'm going to go away for a little while. What happens between now and then will decide weather or not I come back afterwards." Nate nodded slowly. "Do you two have any other secrets you'd like to share now? Because first Eliot's Black Knight and now this? We're a team, Nate. You keep many more secrets and I won't be the only one leaving."

Nate was shared from having to respond when Parker came back in through the door. "Sorry Nate." She said with a wince. "I didn't even know he could be sneaky like that."

"It's okay Parker." Nate said rubbing his eyes. "We're thieves, we know how to disappear when we want to. Hardison's got fifty more minutes. Put what you have on hold and meet in the conference room then." He went to the kitchen on autopilot to get some coffee .

The neatly laid out line of Eliot's cooking knives left to air dry on the counter the night before (He could almost hear Eliot in his head telling him you don't put a five thousand dollar carving knife in a five hundred dollar dish washer) made him remind himself he was coming in here for coffee, not the thing he really wanted.

**oOo**

Parker followed Sophie out of the apartment and up the stairs, a little surprised to find her heading for Eliot's studio. The woman looked shell shocked and weary. Parker kinda got it a little. After Parker found out she'd asked Eliot what being in love was like and he'd told her it was a little like repelling down the side of a building.

Sophie defiantly looked like her system had been faulty. Parker kind of imagined this is what you'd look like if you fell off a sixty story building, well if you weren't all squished and bloody.

"I figured it out a couple weeks ago, after Eliot almost lost it on that job." Parker said as she stepped into the studio. Sophie had been standing in the middle of the room but turned to look at her expectantly. "I was just saying."

Then Sophie got she hadn't come to share words of wisdom. Parker was glad. Giving Eliot words of wisdom hadn't worked so well. He still wouldn't admit he was repelling figuratively. She guessed she wasn't that good at it.

Sophie sighed again, sinking into her chair. "I'd like to be alone Parker."

Parker nodded. When she fell off a figurative building and all her insides felt squished she wanted to be alone, but she also wanted company, and it was confusing.

With a small nod Parker went back downstairs, got Simon, and returned to Eliot's studio and put him on a table to the side. "If you talk to plants they grow better." Parker repeated what Hardison had told her. "Talking helps." She repeated again and left.

As she closed the door she saw Sophie tentatively reach out and touch one of the plant's leaves.

Maybe she wasn't so bad at this wisdom thing.

**oOo**

Everyone gathered back in the apartment a little while later, for once the usual noise and chatter non-existent, Eliot's chair ominously empty.

Without prompting Hardison began the briefing, bringing the picture of a blond haired, blue eyed woman hugging her two young children onto the screen. "The call to Eliot's cell came from Josephine Phillips. Due to the codes you all made me install on your cells phones I wasn't able to get a recording of the conversation." He gave Nate a pointed look.

Nate winced. They'd all wanted to make sure their privacy was kept and he'd made sure Hardison had put methods in place that would scramble the data of their calls so it couldn't be retrieved later. Sometimes precaution was a bad thing.

"I did pull up what information I could on her." Hardison said, continuing. "Josephine Phillips, married to Thomas Phillips, mother of Eliot Phillips ten and Marie Phillips Eight. They live in on Maine Street, Indiana County, Kentucky." Nate waited for Hardison to make a joke about that but nothing came. "Josephine is Thirty three years old, attended Kentucky State for three years but never graduated. No history of crime of theft or anything really. I did find out." A click brought up a picture of pretty a preteen girl and a stern looking teenage boy with the same blue eyes and blonde hair. "Turns out Josephine Phillips grew up Josephine Lawrence until she entered the foster system when she was twelve, records indicate her big brother, Spencer Lawrence, was the one who got the social workers to investigate. Apparently their step father had been increasingly interested in her. Turns out that wasn't all that was going on in that house. About two days after she was taken away the step-dad beat her mom and brother to death. They didn't find her brother's body until five years later."

He clicked to the next slide, showing the mug shot of a man. "Andrew Lawrence was tried and convicted for child abuse, murder, pretty much the whole nine yards. He was supposed to go away for life, but here's what I think is what caused the call. About six months ago he escaped a prison transfer and has been on the run since."

Nate clicked back a slide, looking at the picture of the boy and the girl. Something about it made his head hurt. There was something familiar here. "What's the connection to Eliot?" Nate asked.

"I've been looking but there's not a lot I can see. I know Eliot was in Kentucky while we were split up and it was right around the time Lawrence escaped prison so I'm thinking she might have hired him to take him out but… I don't know. She's not exactly rich and even if Eliot was working on an alternative revenue stream I don't see any stream that would make his rates so unless he was working pro bono…"

Nate considered the screen. "He might have been." Nate admitted, remembering back to Cairo when Eliot had told him a little about his childhood. A weight dropped in his stomach as pieces started fitting together. "What about the brother?" Nate asked, voice sounding a little hollow in his ears.

Hardison got on his computer and typed a little, making a face as he brought up a picture of an eleven or twelve year old boy with short blonde hair, and cold blue eyes. He stared back at the camera through a pair of black eyes, the frown on his face more of a grimace from a twice split lip. "Not a pretty story. Step father married the mother Danica when Spencer was seven. By the time he was eight he'd been in the hospital twice for various injuries. By the time he was twelve he'd been in and out nine more times. But turns out it isn't a coincidence that the town they lived in was called Lawrence, Andrew Lawrence's family owned the hospital, and most of the town, so nothing ever happened."

Hardison clicked around a little more. "The files were hard copy only but I got someone to scan them and e-mail me." He brought them up on the screen, scrolling down page after page of medical records before Hardison closed them. "I'll have a look at them if ya want but the person I talked to said if I wanted more information a couple of Spencer's friends had started a memorial scholarship fund in his honor. Apparently a couple of them were into journalism and had been trying to gather enough evidence to make everything stop."

A couple clicks more brought up a basic web-page with a banner that read "My Sister's Keeper".

"It's a scholarship fund for kids who've survived abusive homes. It's small but they give out a couple scholarships every year." Hardison clicked a link on the navigation bar leading to an "about us" page. "I just skimmed it but it's the sort of story lifetime would love. Abusive stepfather but the big brother remembers his real father always telling him it was his job to protect his little sister. In the seven years from when it starts to when he dies at fifteen he never once lets the man touch his sister. Takes plenty of beatings for it."

Hardison scrolls down. "I didn't have time to look through everything but there's a couple of links here to the evidence they collected. These here are audio files, for the three years they were trying to collect evidence they convinced Spencer to keep an audio journal of what was happening to him. They have a collection of clips here as sort of a summary."

Nate could feel his heart pounding, hear it in his ears. It couldn't be. They'd found the body. But all the facts were lining together.

"Play it."

Hardison clicked and a couple seconds later a somewhat annoyed thirteen year old boy with a southern accent started talking. There was something about that voice that made his stomach churn worse.

"Friday September 18th 1985. Is this thing on? This is so stupid."

Somewhere away from the recorder another voice spoke up. "Please, just do it Spence"

"okay… My name is Spencer. Just Spencer. Papers say my last name is Lawrence but I don't like it. It's my step dad's name."

"why don't you like him?"

"You know why Ames."

"Spencer…"

"Fine. He beats the shit outta me okay? Happy now? Want me ta spell it out for ya? Want me ta show the scars? This is stupid."

There was a short silence and then another voice added the date of wensday October 1st."

"Cops? Why would I go to the cops? They wouldn't do anything. That Man's a Lawrence. This is the town of Lawrence. Ain't a coincidence. That man could probably get away with killing me here. Cops wouldn't do me no good. But it's okay. I'm almost thirteen. Just five more years and I'll be outta there and I'll take my sister with me."

The next date said November 18th.

"My sister, Josephine though everyone calls her Joey, she's your typical kid sister. Looks upta me, hero worship and all. She's three years younger than me so I watch out for her, keep her safe from That Man you know? He's never laid a finger on her in five whole years. I'm doing my job right. I'm keeping her safe. That's whats important you know. Keeping my baby sister safe."

She can be a real brat sometimes though. You know how kids are. Like last week she was in her schools play. I missed one showing of it. Came to the other two. I missed one show and she wouldn't speak to me for like two days. But then she needed help with her math homework and suddenly all was right. Sometimes I think my sister is a little bit nuts."

"December 20th 1984. My mama's not around much. I mean she's always home scrubbing and cooking and keeping things the way they should but she isn't there you know? You can talk at her for an hour and she might hear two words your saying. When That Man's wailing on me? She's nowhere to be seen, even when she's standing there watching. Joey hates her almost as much as That Man but I just… I kinda miss her you know? I can remember back before That Man, back when I was like seven or somthin' she was always there. Even when she got a little distant, thinkin' about my dad and wonderin' when he'd come back to see her next she was still with us. That was my mama. This woman isn't. I just wish I could have my mama back."

My dad? You mean my real dad? I don't know. I've seen a couple pictures and I kinda remember him. He's never been around much. You see my mom… well she was kinda a wild woman. Had a lot of flings. Then this one guy came through town and even though he was married neither really cared. They had a fling and he left. Then mama got pregnant with me and well, she was barely scrapping by and that wasn't enough for a kid so she found him, somehow. He did right by her I guess, paid for her to live and take care of me. He even visited every few weeks for a couple of days. When mama got knocked up with Joey he started giving her more money, made room in his heart for Joey. All I really remember about him was what he always told me "Joey's your little sister. It's your job to protect her." But when mama got married to That Man she asked him to stop coming. I havn't seen him since."

"Feburary 9th 1985. I'm supposed to just be talking about the whole abuse thing an' all but I need to tell you'll this cause it's important. Yesterday I asked Ames to go bowling with me on Friday. I have everything ready. Joey's staying the night at a friends and That Man's going to be out of town all weekend. So just me 'n Ames and bowling and she said if she had a good time she **might** let me be her first kiss."

"Shut up Spence, you sound like a lovesick dog"

"oh well fuck you to Mike."

"February…umm. Twenty somethin'. I… I can't. I'm sorry I just can't do this. I just… I need a couple more days okay. Maybe. I just I don't wanna talk."

"June 2nd 1985. Yeah I get tired of it sometimes. I don't know if I can make the next four years in one piece. I'm so run down all the time. It always hurts. Sometimes I don't think it would be so bad if I could just go a couple of days without it hurting every once in awhile. But I have to do this. Joey's safe because of me. That's all that matters. That's all I care about."

"July 15th 1985. Ames' dad offered me a job at his stables, said I could bring Joey with me every time I came out so she was safe. He knows. Everyone knows but hes always tried to help you know. He said when I'm hurting too bad to work hard I can do easy stuff. It's nice… a little break from reality I think."

"November 25th. Ames' ma always fusses whenever I show up with new bruises, so pretty much every time I come over. I've started comin a half hour early cause she always end up draggin me back into the kitchen to "get a better look at". Then out comes the first aid kit and shes brewin tea and making faces and callin That Man names. It's nice. Even though Joey always gets annoyed because it's Her job to take care of me… she… she's like how mama used to be and she even told me I should call her Ma cause after all these years lookin' after me and my sis. I like it."

"January 21st 1986. Horses aren't like people. They're better. Maybe not as smart but they're gentler, simpler. You take care of them and they'll love ya. Theres this big ol' dame called Sunny, meanest bitch of a horse you never wanted to ride. But you talk to her right, treat her right? She's started treating me like I'm some col' of hers. Whenever I'm hurtin' bad she comes over, lips at my hair and won't let any of the other horses come near me. I… sometimes I tell her not ta worry, cause one of these days I'm going to get on her and just ride her into that sunset and never look back."

"April 26th 1986 I… I… they took Joey. It's for the best. I couldn't keep her safe much longer. She's in the system now and hopefully somewhere better than in our house. I just wish I could be with her to look after her. When they took her away… I don't know if she'll ever forgive me for sending her away.

I can… I can't stay here anymore. I just. I need to get out of here before he kills me. I don't have anywhere ta go but there has to be something right? There has to be something more for me out there. I can't stay here. I have to find freedom.

This will be my last recording. I'm leaving. I'm going somewhere else. I'll change my name. Try again. See how life wants to treat Eliot Spencer. I like the sound of that. Eliot Spencer."


	3. Chapter 3: Reunions

**Fathers  
**_Chapter Three: Reunions_

* * *

**Lawrence Kentuky  
27 Years Ago**

"But Elie!" Joey whined behind him, her face all scrunched up in that pout that always got her whatever she wanted from him. Which was the reason he was being careful not to look at her. It was bad enough she was using her baby nickname for him near constantly these days. He didn't know what was worse, that one of her picture books had had an elephant named Spencer and she'd started calling him "Elie", short for elephant, because it was easier for the then three-year-old to say or that after two years it was a surefire way to make him smile. Right now he didn't really care.

His step-father hadn't been home for dinner. The last three times he'd missed dinner he'd come home smelling like the bus and yelling at them and scaring Joey. Elie had a plan but Father would be home soon and he didn't have time to entertain a five year old who had big brother manipulation down to a science.

"But nothing Joey." He hissed, sounding harsher then he meant. "I played dolls and tea parties with you all afternoon. We're gonna to try the game I wanna play."

"You're mean Elie." She whined again but didn't move from where he'd told her to stand behind him. "And I hate cowboys and Indians."

Elie looked back at his little sister slowly, forcing a smile despite his pounding heart. "Then it's good we ain't playin' that isn't it? We're playin' West, the whole family's playin' an' the games as long as forever okay? I'm a cowboy an' you're a Indian princess and I'm protectin' you from the whole wild west." The moment he told her she was an Indian princess and he was protecting her he knew he had her. Sometimes knowing your sister paid off. "Mama owns the saloon and Father is the evil sheriff who wants to arrest you so he can make you marry Bobby Filch from down the street and take over your tribe. So whenever we're playing you have to hide from father okay?" She nodded eagerly. "an' he and I are gonna fight over you cause I'm protectin' you an all but you need to stay hiden otherwise he'll getcha okay?"

He turned back to the closet he'd been working on since dinner. A childhood of building forts and finding secret places to play until his mama called him home had paid off. He'd managed to turn the little cranny in the back of the upstairs linen closet into a perfect little hideaway for the tiny scrap of life that was his little sister. After she was in there he'd put the blankets and stuff back and close the door. There was even a plug for the nightlight he'd found.

"Come on your highness." He said pointing. "The games gonna start soon. You need ta get inta hidin'. Father could be home any minute." She dutifully crawled in but made faces when he started putting the blankets back. After seeing them he smiled. "Somthin's missin. Ah, I know." He reached up onto the top shelf he could reach and brought down the Indian baby doll she'd wanted so badly but Father wouldn't let mama buy for her. Elie had stolen it and he'd be in a lot of trouble is father found out but it'd been too hard for too long. His baby sister should get something pretty and nice.

Her eyes went wide when she saw it, reaching out for it with eager hands. "Elie!"

"This is your little sister." He said. "She's also in hidin' but Father doesn't know about her so you can't let him see her cause he'll take her away. She's your little sister so it's your job to protect her okay?"

She looked up, hugging the doll close. "Like you protect me?"

He nodded, giving her the most charming and confident grin an eight and three quarters year old boy could. "Like I protect you." He went back to putting the blankets back. "I'll sit here until Father gets home okay? Wanna practice your letters?"

"Elie" She whined, somewhat deadened by the blankets.

"Joey, your teacher told me you were having trouble with them. What would mama say?"

"Fine." Joey said, he could here the pout in her voice. "But you have to go over your multications then."

"Fine." Eliot said with a long-suffering sigh. "But just remember when I tell you Father's home you have to be quiet and not come out until I come tell you."

"I'll remember." She agreed. "A is for Apple. B is for Baby. C is for cat. D is for Dog. E is for Elephant and my big brother Elie…"

They'd made it through the alphabet and he'd made it through his fives times tables and was working seven times six out on his fingers when Elie heard the front door open. "Father's home." He whispered, climbing onto the space cleared on the shelf above her and closing the door as quietly as possible.

"Danica! Wheres my dinner? Spencer! Get your ass down here boy. Josephine!" Father shouted as he came in. "Spencer!"

For long minutes the house roared and shook as their father whipped himself into a fury. Elie was beginning to think that maybe they'd survived the worst of it when the closet door opened and rough hand grabbed him pulling him out and throwing him hard against the hallway's far wall.

His step father leaned over him, yanking Elie's head back by his hair to force him to look into those brutal blue eyes. He pulled Elie up to whisper not an inch from his face. "Found you."

**oOo**

**Present Day**

If nothing else good could be said about the situation Eliot could at least say he'd been prepared. After That Man escaped prison and the two weeks of searching had ended with nothing Eliot had hung around for another two weeks to make sure his sister was safe. He'd spent more than a little of that time making preparations for the worst case scenario and how he'd get back "home" on a moments notice.

He'd also gotten to know his niece and nephew a little better than the handful of visits he'd had before, which was not helping him in his quest to be able to think straight about this. He'd known from the moment his sister had told him her two year old son was named after him, that she'd forgiven him long ago and was waiting for him to forgive himself and come back to her, and that little bright eyed boy had tottered up to him and asked him to play cowboys with him that he would gladly die for his nephew. When his little niece was born a year and a half later he had fought through a civil war to get to an airfield in time to get home to be with his sister when Marie came into the world. They were his family, and in his line of work and now with this thing with Nate probably the closest thing to a legacy he'd leave behind.

But it was knowing that intelligent and friendly boy he'd helped practice for little league, and that little girl who looked so much like her mother and acted so much like how she should have been, happy and carefree… knowing they were with the man who'd turned his childhood into a war he'd never win?

That was what was burning up his mind and making the crystal clear Eliot Spencer focus anything but.

But he'd been prepared. He'd had plans laid and things packed and he didn't even need to think to get everything together and be on a plane to Kentucky within an hour of the phone call.

He spent the air plane ride looking over all the information he'd gathered while hunting That M-, Andrew Lawrence, six months before. He tried desperately to put in a little distance, a little perspective. He'd be no good to anyone if his judgment was clouded or he let fear get in the way. This was just another case, another mark. He'd retrieve the Phillips children and deliver their kidnapper a sound and thorough beating before putting a bullet through his head just to make certain.

Just another job.

He closed his eyes, banishing the ghostly pain of blows, the ring of screams in his ears, the feeling of hands an-

"Sir? Would you like something to drink?" He looked up, startled at the stewardess and shook his head, forcing a grateful smile and turning back to his folder. The lines blurred together with memory and nightmare and he told himself one more time.

Just another job.

**oOo**

After the recording fell silent no one said anything. No one did anything. No one had any clue how to even begin responding to that. Even Nate, who'd had some idea how bad Eliot's childhood had been couldn't quite wrap his mind around what they'd just heard.

"Do you think…" Hardison started, not even sure how to finish.

"He has a sister he calls Joey." Nate answered. "I know he was abused."

"Now I get why he hated Juan more than Hardison." Sophie put in. "Must have brought back some terrible memories."

There were a few other quiet comments as they all tried to absorb until Parker raised her hand.

"Parker?" Nate asked, giving her his attention or trying to.

"What do we do? We don't just let him go alone right?"

"I know we were doing this to go after and help him" Sophie started. "But… don't you think this is a personal matter? Something he'd want to take care of himself?"

Hardison looked toward Nate, nodding hesitantly. "She has a point. I mean, I was thinking he was gonna have the whole Russian Mob on him the way he was acting. If it's just some sick son of a bitch harassing his sister I don't think he'll have much use for us."

Nate got up and walked away from the table, looking at the picture of the battered youth on the screen. "The way he was acting." Nate said softly. "That's why." He turned back to them. "This isn't the Russian mob, or a Mexican drug cartel. He's faced them both and I've never seen him as scared as he was when he left. Right now Eliot isn't thinking like the best retrieval specialist in the business. He's fifteen years old, brutalized, and living in terror of what his step-father will do next. He's running scared, not thinking clearly, at best he'll end up doing something he'll regret." Nate looked over at Hardison who'd started typing on his computer. "Hardison?"

"Theres a flight that can get us to Indiana County in four hours." Hardison said. "But I've got some friends who might be able to hook us up with a flight sooner."

"How soon?"

Hardison typed for another minute, waited then closed his computer. "How 'bout now?"

**oOo**

There was a porch swing in back of the house, looking over the big back yard. Whenever Eliot visited he'd sit there with her from time to time, watching the kids play, looking up at the stars after they were in bed. Even though it had only been a handful of visits over the years, keeping her at arm's length to keep her safe, it was where Josephine felt her brother strongest. It was where she went when she felt confused, or tired.

Or needed desperately to feel safe for a moment.

She hadn't told her husband yet, hadn't called the cops. The note had said specifically not to get them involved. It was just a matter for her and Elie, family business. So she'd called him and now she sat on the porch, feeling like the strong wood beneath her and the ghost of her brother's presence was the only thing holding her away from oblivion.

Fear for her children, for herself, for her brother, the ageless, nameless terror that had haunted her sleep before she'd even known what it was that hurt her brother so… she was drowning in it. She needed to move, to stand, to fight. She needed to do something besides sit here and wait for the creak of the back screen door that was the only sound that warned her Eliot was coming out.

"Joey…" He said behind her, pulling her out of her reverie. In a second she was on her feet and safe in his arms, shielded from everything if only for a second. "I gotcha sis. I'm here. Thing'll be okay. Just tell me what happened."

"He's got 'em Elie." She said, feeling what was left of her composure shake and crack. "He's got 'em. What if he… what if he-"

Eliot put a finger to her lips, shushing her like when they were children and she let herself get worked up. "Ain't gonna happen. You said he left a note, sayin' he wanted ta see me, that he'd bring El' and Marie. I'll go to the meet and I'll bring them home safe. I won't let anythin' happen."

She looked up at him, seeing his old bravado he saved for when he was trying to assure her he "wasn't" about to walk into an unusually bad beating. "Eliot…."

"Have a little faith sis. I haven't been fightin' daisies for twenty years. He can try to lay a hand on me. Won't work well for him, an' if he's hurt them I swear ta god he won't be hurtin' anyone else." He pulled away just enough to get a good look at her, nodding in the way he had when they were little and he was reassuring himself she was okay. "Now show me the note."

She reached into her pocket, holding the note out toward him with a hand that shook a little. He took it, wrapping one strong arm around her shoulders as he unfolded it and read it.

It was pretty illegible, rambling about having Josephine and Spencer but how he'd trade them for Spencer-Eliot, instructions to not call the cops or get anyone outside the family involved, demands for Eliot to come, for money.

"He's insane." Josephine said softly once Eliot closed the notes.

"That's why he's so dangerous." Eliot muttered his response. "Two most dangerous kinds of criminals in the business are amateurs and crazies. You can't predict what they'll do next and they'll do what most people are too sane ta try." Something akin to a bitter smile crossed his face for half a second and Joey remembered him saying something like that to her over the summer only he'd been describing one of his "co-workers" . "That Man's both." Eliot finally finished. "Look Joey, you need ta get outta here to somewhere safe. Go to Boston, my team's there. They're good people. Nate'll see you safe until this is sorted out."

She started to protest. She wasn't going anywhere. She wasn't some kid who needed to hide in the closet while he got the stuffing knocked out of him. They were her kids that monster had.

She barely got her mouth open before he put his hand over it. "I can't be worryin' about you and them. If this is gonna end okay I need to know you're safe."

"Elie…" She looked down, bracing herself physically like he'd taught her years ago. Her shoulders squared, her feet planted in a stable stance. "I can't… I won't just go and hide while he hurts you again." He started to speak but she stopped him. "You're scared." She stepped closer and touched his arm, a sad smile spreading across her face when he flinched away.

He looked down and away, taking a step back to create the personal space he'd needed those last few years as children. He opened his mouth a little bit, looking like he had when they were little and like always he closed it without speaking. The nearly pathological need to protect his sister in any way he could engrained in him longer than either could remember causing him to turn away rather than open up.

Shouldering alone the burden they should have always shared.

"Go pack a bag. I'm taking you to the airport in an hour."

She almost argued, but his voice had gone distant, his shoulders set. Like all those times before when things were at their worst they didn't even look at one another, because even that little acknowledgement of what had happened might break Elie. There was no more strength for charade, they soldiered on because it was what they did, because the other only soldiered on because they did.

She watched him walk back into the house, the stranger who showed up when her brother could do no more.

There'd be no arguing with him. She could only wait and watch and hope her brother came back in the end.

**oOo**

Eliot stood by the window in El's bedroom, fingers on the latch registering the type of lock and how it had been broken so someone might sneak in and snatch the boy from his bed. His mind was fuzzy… no, his mind was clear. It was clearer than it had been since he'd recived that phone call.

It was just that there was a woman in the room next to this one, crying and packing a suit case and although his mind classified her as "little sister" and "family" and "protect at all cost"…

He knew she was his little sister but it was like how you knew things in dreams, or how you knew you were born somewhere or like how the team knew he killed people. It was knowledge that wasn't processed, that held no emotional connection, that just registered but nothing more.

He knew he should be more concerned than he was but all that really registered was that all that noise and confusion had flat lined out into white noise that let him function.

He examined the window and swept through the room. He wasn't a trained investigator or anything but after years of covering his own tracks he'd learned a good deal about how to spot the marks of the passing of others.

But there wasn't much to find, at least not that he didn't already know.

Time passed and he returned to the living room to collect his bag and the weapons within. He was almost through gearing up for a fight, going through the motions as easy as breathing, when the phone rang.

He crossed to it, answering with a gruff "hello", hearing the click as Josephine picked up another line.

"Hello Spencer." Andrew Lawrence said. "I see darling Josephine did as told. If everyone does as told the good boys and girls will be rewarded."  
"What do you want?" Eliot asked, voice steady.

"Is that any way to speak to your father? You know good boys and girls treat their daddy with respect."

Mechanically his mouth moved and voice spoke. He knew this path easily. "What do you want daddy? Are Eliot and Marie alright? Can we speak to them?"

"I suppose you have the ability to but I think you were asking was if you had permission."

"May we talk to them daddy?"

"Say please."

"Please."

"You may not, because you gave me sass. You're a bad boy." Eliot closed his eyes, feeling just a hint of dread drop out of the pit of his stomach as the clear focused white noise jarred at that. "What happens to bad boys?"

"They're punished." He answered closing his eyes and just trying to hang on to… anything really.

"But I can't reach you where you are. I can't punish you. I can't save you." He said almost like it actually pained him. "I want to save you Spencer. Don't you want me to save you? Please, tell me you do. If I could just save you maybe I wouldn't have to try again. My little grandbabies are such a handful I don't know if I have the time to save them but it's my duty to try if I can't save you."

"You can still save me." Eliot said, barely above a whisper.

"You make me happy my son. You might yet be a good boy and good boys should be rewarded. Come to the old grain mill on the edge of Marshal's Hall, where your sister picnics with my lovely grandbabies. Come, be a good boy, and do as you're told and I'll see to it you get a treat."

The phone line went dead.

Before he could even put the phone back into it's cradle someone was pounding at the door.

He crossed to it, opening it to see the team standing on the porch.

He looked from face to face before glancing back inside. "Joey's in the upstairs bedroom. I'll be back in a few hours."

He was in his truck and driving off a moment later, hearing Joey's calls after him long after they'd actually faded from hearing.


	4. Chapter 4: Hindsight

**Notes:** Dedicated to my wonderful beta, ALS_wonderland who started this chapter.

* * *

**Fathers  
**_Chapter 4: Hindsight  
_

* * *

Of all the counties in all the states of all the world they just had to be headed to Indiana County Kentucky.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Hardison was itching to say that, to make a movie reference because Casablanca was an awesome movie and should be quoted more often.

But they'd ask why he knew that county and what it meant to him and for once Hardison had no interest in sharing. There were some things you just didn't share. Some things went unmentioned. Wasn't this whole case a sign that some things just went unsaid?

So Hardison didn't mention that he'd been born in Indiana County and raised just over the county line in Hardoaks. He didn't say his biological mother was just fifty or so miles west of them, probably drunk or high in front of the tv in her trailer. He wouldn't say one word that coming back to Indiana county was about as sickening as any of his other "homecomings" had been.

The team knew he was a foster kid but in their minds there was a different kind of disconnect then those that kept them from thinking about the hell Eliot had been through and the abuse heaped on Parker to make them who they were, but there was a disconnect all the same. Statistics alone said that Nana couldn't have been his first and last foster home.

Before that and in between? Every time he'd been thrown from one foster home to another there'd be a brief little trip back to Indiana County, back to his mother's trailer and the smell of burnt food and close quarters and his mother's screaming at him. She never hit him, sometimes he almost wished she had because he thought at least then the social services would stop trying to send him "home".

That wasn't home. Home was five miles away in the old house they'd had before his dad died. His dad was an engineer, getting into computer technology when the clunky modems of the nineties were still the stuff of science fiction. More than that he was a black man who'd been the youngest child in a family of sharecroppers who worked and saved and studied until he could get into college and get his degree and try to give his family a better life.

His mother had told him so. One of his few good memories he had of the woman was on her better nights she'd tell him about his father and his history saying what Nana would say years later. "If you know where you come from it's easier to see where you should go."

Hardison had to admit, growing up with those stories was probably why he'd taken to technology, why he'd become who he was.

As they rolled up the driveway to Eliot's sister's house, hauntingly so similar to the one he'd seen in pictures, Hardison made a small offering to the man upstairs. If this homecoming of Eliot's ended alright, with the kids safely home and Eliot in one piece and the team okay, he'd take a side trip those fifty miles to see his mother for the first time in nearly fifteen years. If Eliot survived this homecoming Hardison could survive one of his own.

**oOo**

Eliot drove. The Picnic House, as the kids always called the old abandoned barn and fields where their mother took them for picnics, wasn't more than a thirty minute drive even when he was being careful to drive at the speed limit. The last thing he wanted to do was get pulled over and go through the mess of police. He couldn't be late. The children couldn't afford it.

Somewhere behind his eyes he could feel a migraine building. It was pounding to a level that would have impaired him if he wasn't as used to functioning when he was barely able to stand. Distantly he knew that it was on of many signs that something wasn't right, that he was toeing a very fine line but it was mostly drowned out by the white noise filling up his head and the task that lay ahead.

**oOo**

The dust had barely been raised by the tires of Eliot's truck before the team was racing back to their van to follow. A woman came bolting out of the house calling for Eliot even as she ran to the team putting a hand on Nate's shoulder. "Stop… he's gone."

"That's why we're going after him." Parker said in her "I'm trying to be reasonable" voice.

The woman Nate was somewhat certain was Josephine shook her head. "No you don't get it. He's gone, he won't stop for you. I couldn't even talk him down earlier."

It took Nate a moment to register what she meant. _Gone. _He swallowed the bile in his throat when he realized she meant _Eliot_ was gone. "Black Knight?" He let the words slip out softly. He'd never actually seen Eliot **stay** that way for longer than a few minutes in the heat of a fight.

She nodded. "I think so."

He looked after the truck, long gone from view, remembering Eliot's words when they left. The white knight had been left vulnerable to a black rook or black knight. He swallowed the most recent in a long line of waves of panic, keeping his head to focus on the job.

Josephine dropped her hand, clenching it into a fist and then letting it go. "Theres no reasoning with him now. Elie's gone to meet with That Man. He… I…" She was wavering looking at all of them, back up the road, faltering and trying to breath through the kind of panic Nate had a feeling he understood.

He met Sophie's eyes and nodded. He might understand but Sophie would be better at handling it, and Nate was needed elsewhere.

Sophie put a gentle hand on Josephine's shoulder, leading her back into the house. For a moment Nate, Parker, and Hardison stared at each other, trying to think of something Anything to do. Hardison had spent most of the trip looking through information and records but had been distracted, upset. Nate knew he had to be taking this hard. He, Parker, and Eliot had been getting close, almost like siblings in Nate's mind. Though distantly Nate wondered if it was something other than discovering exactly how bad "not a chick flick", the closest Eliot had ever come to describing his child hood, was.

"What's the plan Nate?" Parker asked, finally breaking the silence.

That was the question of the hour wasn't it?

**oOo**

Eliot stopped the truck a block away from the edge of the park. It added at least twenty minutes to the trip but habit and survival instinct dictated he leave his vehicle somewhere safe and out of sight.

He readjusted his gear, checking his knives and checking himself to make sure he was ready for whatever came. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to go into a situation "ready for anything" because you didn't have the team doing recon to make sure you knew what you were up against.

He wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, confusion flooding him when he saw something red drop onto his nose. He pulled his hand away, wiping the blood off and only belatedly noticing a rather deep cut on the pad of his thumb. He must of cut himself on one of his blades or… something.

He hadn't even felt it.

It was another sign that something was wrong.

His cell-phone went off, the ever annoying ringtone Hardison had hacked his phone to plant letting him know it was Sophie calling.

He should answer. He should wait for backup. Every instinct he had was screaming at him that he was being an idiot and needed to stop thinking strictly tactically about how to do this and think logically about why he shouldn't be doing this alone.

He shut off his cell, holding it in his hand for one brief moment before hurling it against a nearbye tree.

He wasn't even sure why he'd done it.

Pressing his fingers against the cut on his thumb to stem the flow of blood he started to walk.

**oOo**

They'd barely made it a few steps into the living room before Josephine just broke down. Sophie stumbled a little, helping the shaken woman to a couch and holding her as she sobbed, patting her back and playing her part. She might have little love for Eliot and she could be vindictive but she wasn't going to take it out on his little sister. Especially not when she was going through the kind of hell this day must have been for her.

While holding the sobbing woman and cooing appropriately comforting things Sophie was thinking. She'd spent most of the past few hours just trying to work through her feelings about the revelations and everything it all meant. She kept getting hung up on… well okay everything really.

She was so angry at Eliot but then… hearing that voice… Eliot as a child as he just broke down under what had happened had been heart wrenching. She wanted to help him. It didn't make her forgive him but she was more than her (now futile) love for Nate. It had made her realize even though she was close to wanting to wring both their necks for playing her for the fool all this time she still cared. She still wanted him (and them) to be okay.

And if Eliot (and this woman, and her kids, and the others) were going to be okay they all needed to think straight. Nate didn't seem to be having much luck in that field so she'd have to do.

She let go of Josephine. They had to go after Eliot. Even if they couldn't talk him down from doing something he'd regret, even if they couldn't save him when it had really mattered (twenty years ago) maybe they could prevent further damage.

"Where is Eliot going?" Sophie asked gently. The woman took a moment to answer but in the end Sophie had enough that they'd be able to use Hardison's GPS. "We have to go." Sophie whispered. "We'll bring him back. I promise."

Sophie got up and walked out the front door to meet the others. "We have to go." Sophie said. There was a breath, a pause, and then the flustered haphazard planning halted. Ocumez Razor said that the simplest solution was often the best and it looked like they would be going with that.

**oOo**

It took longer than Eliot remembered to get to the Picnic House, or maybe it just seemed longer. He was loosing track of time. Loosing track of… something. He felt mixed up and pulled apart like he had years ago, back on the streets and on the run and hurting.

He'd never really stopped hurting, but after four winters on the streets he'd managed to freeze over parts of himself that he couldn't handle. Helped along by his own fracturing mind he'd bottled it up, isolated, compartmentalized until it was something else, someone else, something that didn't feel and only fought. It hadn't been until years later he realized he created a monster in his own head.

The monster wasn't in his own head any more though. His parts were unfreezing and coming apart and he just…

He'd just hold it together a little longer. He'd save Eliot and Josephine and things would be okay. He could fall apart then.

He turned around a bend and broke through the tree line, the Picnic House was up ahead.

He headed straight for the open door, not checking his surroundings like he should. He couldn't make himself break that stride toward the door, even when he heard a car racing toward him he kept moving until he passed under that archway into the dark.

**oOo**

They'd driven over the speed limit, used Hardison's gadget to change lights to green, taken a lucky short cut and driven straight into the park and overland to the Picnic House. They saw Eliot ahead, crossing the fields to the barn like he was in a dream.

Or a nightmare.

They called to him, screeching to a halt and piling out of the van as he entered the barn.

There was a sound somewhere between a roar of anger and a cry of pain that echoed through the trees sending birds into flight and the team running.

Eliot stood in the rear of the barn lifting a sobbing twelve year old boy into a hug, blood staining the back of the boy's jeans and a look on Eliot's face Nate could only describe as shattered.


	5. Chapter 5: Conversations

**Notes:** Good news for the fandom, as of last night I have the rest of Fathers planed out, we have two more chapters and a epilouge to go.  
Yesterday I bought Leverage Season One on DVD which will likely prove a very good thing for fans of my work and a Nintendo DS lite (and games) which will likely prove a very bad thing for fans of my work. Hopefully it will balance out a little.  
Once more my internet is down and my internal Hardison is crying because I've been reduced to dial up.

**Warnings:** Vauge and not so vauge implications of sexual abuse, angst, people without doctorates trying to discus the stuff in feilds they don't have doctorates in, symbolisim.

_No Christian Kanes or children were hurt in the making of this fic. Stay in school._

* * *

**Fathers  
**_Chapter Five: Conversation  
_

* * *

**Lawrence Kentucky  
22 Years ago**

"Elie… Elie… Come on big brother. Open the door." Joey's voice, muffled by the bathroom door tried to coax him out or at least let her in. Elie tried to steady his breathing, stop the sobs he knew she could hear, give her some kind of solid acknowledgement that he was okay. He should. He needed to pull himself together.

He pushed himself away from the toilet he'd lost what little he'd managed to choke down at dinner into, but his body felt as limp and he ended up flopping backwards. The cold tile against his body and the injuries That Man had left him with stole a soft cry from him, his usual self control all but completely stripped away.

He turned on his side and curled up into a ball.

He could hear Joey pounding on the bathroom door, calling his name as loudly as she dared.

He should tell her he was okay. He should tell her to be quiet before she woke That Man. He should let her in.

He should do a lot of things but right now he just… he just didn't care right now.

He was too fucking tired to care.

He closed his eyes and curled tighter. Without clothes between him and the floor the cold seeped into him, numbing him, calling him under. He felt hot blood crawl down his skin still leaking from…

He shuddered, feeling it again, seeing, smelling…

Hands touched his shoulder and he whirled, barely stopping before he hit his little sister. The girl had gone out into the hall and come into the bathroom through the door from his room.

Her eyes were wide, round, scared. She was only ten but she knew enough to realize, even if she mercifully didn't truly understand, that something had happened that was worse than the beatings he was routinely getting.

She didn't cry. Neither of them had cried in years. She just reached down, finger tips just barely brushing his cheek like she was afraid he was going to fall apart. It was then he realize that **she** hadn't cried in years. He'd been crying for awhile now.

He broke eye contact, scrubbing at his cheeks and trying desperately to pull himself back together. He just… he had to make this okay. He…

Joey sat next to him and pulled him into a hug, holding him like mama used to, the way that made you feel safe after a bad dream. Carefully, almost awkwardly like she wasn't sure, she ran a hand through his hair and made soft soothing noises like he'd done when she was younger and would run to him for protection from bad dreams.

She was protecting him from a bad reality.

He pulled away a little but she kept her hands on his shoulders, lightly, but keeping contact. "No Elie." She said softly, ducked and twisting her head until she could catch his eyes with hers. "Let me be the big brother for once."

He took a sharp breath, dropping his eyes from hers only to see the blood, vomit, and things he couldn't even identify the hug had smudged onto her clothes. She looked down and shrugged, brittle, broken smile on her face. "See, I'm already as dirty as you."

It would be a few more years before she would understand why that caused him to break down again. A few years to understand the full extent of the cruelty that had left that thirteen year old boy sobbing, naked and bleeding, on the bathroom floor or how he'd warped and twisted in the years that followed.

But even as she held the brother she'd never dreamed would falter, praying to god that she would be able to hold him together, she understood one thing.

It was something she'd never be able to forget, something she prayed she'd only have to do just this once.

Two months later she gave her last confession and never set foot in a church again.

**oOo**

There was a long moment where no one moved, almost no one breathed as the horror and shock wrapped around them.

When Sophie took a step forward Eliot's grip tightened around the boy and his posture changed, screaming a warning to anyone who'd seen him fight. Nate had taken half a step forward, eliciting the same reaction when Parker moved.

"Steady, steady." She whispered, her voice pitched strangely low and Nate almost wondered if she was imitating someone. Her eyes were locked on Eliot's, face showing only concentration but she moved with slow caution, her hands up just enough to keep them visible.

Eliot didn't withdraw further.

She crossed the barn floor, standing in front of Eliot, holding out her arms almost like she wanted him to hand the boy over. Brief recognition, his posture changed, and though something about his expression made it clear Parker ***had*** to be kidding him he relaxed his hold. Her head cocked to the side and she shrugged. "Fair point" evident in the way she moved.

"Where are you?" She asked. "Where did you go? Who are you?"

He took in a deep breath and let it out, relaxing one tiny bit at a time. He licked his lips and answered. "Eliot Spencer. The picnic house…" He closed his eyes and opened them again. "And that's where…"

"'ncle Elie?" The crying boy broke the moment and Eliot looked down at the boy, horror crossing his face once more.

"El?" He asked, his voice more gravely than normal but softer all the same. "Hey buddy, you okay?"

Parker turned back to the others with a look that clearly said "Get over here already, what are you waiting for?" In the back of his mind Nate wondered when they'd all become fluent in reading expressions that contained mostly variations of squints.

The next words the boy spoke eased away the horror just a little. "Yeah. I think so… He just cut my hands." The boy unclenched his fists to show jagged cuts on both the palms. "He… he still has Marie. I told him to let her go 'cause" He swallowed hard, obviously trying to stop crying. "I'm her big brother an' you an' mama always say I have to protect her but he just cut my hands and rubbed the blood on my clothes and left me here." He let his head drop forward, letting Eliot hold him.

The relief on Eliot face was almost painful to see. Nate didn't know what game That Man had been playing at but the same sick feeling in his stomach that he'd had at the start returned.

Sophie came forward, taking the boys hands gently to examine and being her most soothing she could be. "That's alright, it alright. We'll get her back but you need to be safe now. Did he say anything else to you or your sister?"

Intelligent blue eyes far too like Eliot's blinked at her before looking to the others. "You're 'ncle Elie's friends aren't you? He told us about you." He looked back to Sophie something half between a laugh and a sob breaking from his throat. "Marie always wanted to meet you all." He turned back to Eliot and ducked his head against his chest, no longer crying but looking very like he wasn't to far away from checking out for a long while.

Eliot looked down at the boy and then up at the others. He opened his mouth to say something, having as hard a time as the rest of them at figuring out something to say to this. Finally he said. "El said That Man told him to tell me he'd be in touch. We should go back to Joey. She could be in danger if she's alone."

No one said anything as they left the barn and got back into the van and drove home. El fell asleep almost the moment he was safely buckled in, nestled against Eliot.

Joey was waiting for them by the door, taking in the sight of their grim faces and Eliot carrying her son she let out a strangled sob. Eliot shook his head. "No, Jo'. He's alright. Just a couple cuts. No mess."

"Marie?" She asked, opening the door to let them in.

"I… I'm sorry. He still has her." Eliot looked down at the boy in his arms. "I think… I think she'll be safer than…" He trailed off and Joey nodded and they both turned to head up the stairs like they barely even noticed the rest of the team. They probably didn't. They were being taken back to a private hell.

A personal nightmare that allowed little room for everyone else.

There was silence. None of them just… they needed to do something but they were all still processing.

He was the man with the plan though so he had to do something. "Hardison set up so you can trace any calls. Parker, do whatever you'd do to get ready, we might need you sneaking in somewhere. Sophie go see if Eliot or Josephine need help."

They all nodded, turning to do as told.

Nate went after Parker, waiting until she'd gone out onto the back porch to call to her. "Parker."

She turned giving him a confused look. "What?"

He caught up with her. "Back there?" He asked, trying to understand what had happened. Parker had the social skills and subtly of a sledge hammer. How she'd been the one to reach Eliot was a mystery. Considering they might need to reach him again in the near future he would like that mystery solved.

She turned away, climbing to perch on the porch railings. "He was having a flashback." She said. "Reliving something that happened to him before." She explained like she thought Nate might not understand. "It happens sometimes to abused kids. Other people to." She added the later bit like an afterthought. "A long time ago one of my foster parents had a foster kid who'd come from a really bad place. She got flashbacks a lot and he'd help her wake up. I figured since I can only act when I imitate people I'd try what he did." She looked over at Nate, giving a small Parker smile. "But the 'steady steady' was from when Eliot tried to teach me how to ride and I spooked the horse."

Nate sighed, processing, feeling a slight pain in his chest when he had a feeling he knew exactly who the girl she was talking about was. This mess was dredging up more than just Eliot's past.

He nodded and turned away, he had other things to do. "Hey Nate?" She called and he turned back. "You said we're. Before. You said 'we're thieves'." It took Nate a moment to remember what she meant another to admit it may have been a Freudian slip. She just smiled her Parker smile. "So you admitted you're a black king. Now just admit you're repelling with Eliot and things might go a little better."

Without further explanation she stood on the rail and shimmied up onto the roof overhead. She peeked back over the lip, grinned a little and retreated further.

Nate stood on the porch for a little while, looking out over the yard. He could almost hear the sound of giggling kids as they ran around. A swing hung from the branch of a big oak tree not too different than the one that once hung in his backyard.

He let out a breath.

It was all too much. Jobs with children being hurt were hard. Jobs with his team being hurt were hard. Memories were painful and this? He'd known for years that Eliot had been abused, that it had probably been worse than he'd ever admit to. But seeing it laid out like this? That shattered look on Eliot's face when El might have been brutalized, the fact that it was just that man toying with Eliot…

He needed a drink.

He'd been better about that lately but he **really** just needed a drink. He didn't want to think about That Man, or the traumatized Phillips children, or that Eliot might not come back to them from this, or how his own Father had run out like Eliot had and ended up commiting suicide, or that Hardison had become so jumpy when they'd driven closer to the county line for a reason Nate could only guess had to be personal, or that his suspicions about Parker had been almost confirmed or that Sophie knew and god knew what would happen next with that.

He wanted a drink.

Instead he got Hardison ducking out the back door. "Hey, Nate, we're all set up and El's asleep. Sophie's trying to get Joey to rest. Eliot shut himself up in the guest bedroom and I think I saw Parker sneaking along on the roofs so she might be in there with him."

Nate nodded leaning back in the porch swing he'd found himself sitting on. He should be planning but he felt exhausted right now, even more than he should be. It took him a moment to realize it was because he and Eliot had been up **Very **late the night before. Eliot had gotten into a bar fight after work and come home with his blood pumping the way Nate should probably be worried that violence tends to get Eliot.

He'd only gotten a couple hours sleep. It hadn't mattered at the time. Eliot barely slept and the couch in Nate's office had been very comfortable for a reason.

Had it really been less than a day?

"You know you really should pay more attention when I do my job." Hardison's voice broke through his reverie. "I mean really. How many times have you asked me to track someone via cell-phone and I carefully, in simple small non-technobabble words told you that I couldn't *o**nly* **because they were turned off. Then you two decide you're going to get a place together and try to keep it off the map but NEVER turn your phones off."

Nate looked over at Hardison. It took a minute to realize what Hardison was getting at before Nate could start glaring. "You were tracking us?"

"No, but when I got a break on a case at four in the morning and I couldn't get in touch with either of you but you're cell phone's were on I figured you might be in trouble I looked to see where you were. When you were in the same place I was worried, right up to the point where I went to the location to try to see if you were being held hostage or something and I could help or you know, stand and watch as Eliot beat the shit out of everyone."

Nate winced, imagining what Hardison might have found. "And…"

"Apparently the landlord's daughter is about as insomniac as I am. Seriously, the girl was "doing her rounds" watering plants or something when she saw me in the hallway. I guess I kinda startled her. As she was helping me wash the pepper spray out of my eyes and apologiesing for it she found out I was looking for you and started complaining about how she wished more couples were like you two and how these days the only nice men were gay."

He winced, but at least Hardison hadn't checked the video feeds or something.

"That not what I wanted to say though…" Hardison said with a sigh, going over to lean against the porch railings.

"After I found out about The Black Knight, and stopped being pissed, I started doing research. I mean, I figured it was probably something that only happens when you live like we do so there wouldn't be much but what could it hurt." He tapped his fingers against the rail, visibly agitated by his train of thought, not wanting to say what he was about to say. "I read something, didn't think much of it, but after today. What if it isn't some new thing, just a new version of something?"

He turned, facing Nate, sitting perched on the railing of the porch. "Dissociative Identity Disorder, what most call spilt personalities. I mean, I think we're missing the big one cause other than the fact he's mildly less scary in normal life than he is in a fight there's no real second personality…" Hardison trailed off. "I mean he has some symptoms but we're talking about things that are normal for all of us." He was strangely still now and Nate almost had to wonder at the change to their youngest team mate. "I kept reading though and a couple other things I saw made just as much sense. I didn't have much to go on but… with all this." He let out a long slow sigh, looking at his hands.

Nate looked up at the ceiling above them, a hand scrubbing down his face. "Nearly all those diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder reported long-term abuse by a family member or someone they trust. Most often the abuse was sexual in nature." There is a short, pained pause before he continues, refusing to even consider that right now. "The disorder begins as a coping mechanism. The child compartmentalizes, pretends it happened to someone else, even force themselves to forget. It happens again and the pattern continues until a separate identity forms." He meets Hardison's eyes, a small bitter grin hinting across his face. "I've been trying to figure this out for nearly ten years."

Hardison nods looking down. "Got any theories?"

Nate looked out over the lawn again. "There were pieces I didn't have until now." _Or didn't want to consider._ "You?"

Hardison shrugged and muttered something. After a moment he said it louder. "It doesn't happen overnight. It's not one day you've got healthy kid and the next you've got two kids in the same mind. What if… what if he got out before the second one was defined? If instead of a second personality he's just been instinctively doing what he did before and tuning out. Only with all the violence once he's out he lashes out."

Nate stared into space. "Every time I've seen him go… he's either been badly hurt or he's seen someone been badly beaten…" His voice trailed off, remembering Parkers words. "Flashbacks… it triggers a flashback which triggers him to white out… that's why it hurts him not to let it go, he's stuck in the flashback…" He looked toward Hardison who gave a apologetic shrug. Nate was reminded of back on that damn plane where Hardison reminded him his knowledge of unknown fields was limited to what he could pull off the internet.

Neither of them were psychologists. "It doesn't matter." He said, standing. "We've got the best at what we do on this team but we're not doctors. Trying to give it a name won't help us deal with it."

Hardison shook his head. "It's good news. I mean, if I'm right then things are good." Nate turned, giving Hardison a look that seemed to adequately remind Hardison just how not good things were right now. "Right, they're bad right now, really bad. But Nate? If it's this… it's got a treatment. They say with treatment most patients get better. I know you said it was getting worse and this won't help at all but it might not be some bat-shit crazy mental disorder you only get after you're kill list starts to near four digits. It might have a name and some way to make it better, not just go away for awhile."

Somehow, Nate actually smiles a little, realizing what Hardison meant. There is something to be said for knowing your enemy. "There's one major flaw to your plan." Nate remarked, a tiny hint of humor on his voice. "I'm relatively sure any treatment would mean therapy. Getting Eliot to go to therapy…that's something I don't see happening."

Hardison almost laughed, a grin on his face. It eased something a little. Even after all they'd found out, after all the painful bits of Eliot's past they'd been dragged through he was still their Eliot, and the image of Eliot on a psychiatrist's couch talking about his feelings was still ridiculous.

Nate was continuing his aborted exit when Hardison stopped him one more time. "He'd go if you asked him you know." Nate turned back, confused. "He'd complain, and mumble, and threaten to punch someone but he'd go. Probably wouldn't even piss off the doctor, intentionally at least." He shook his head, disbelieving smile on his face as he watched Nate. "You don't get it do you? Eliot's not the type that say a lot, he lets what he does do the talking."

Nate swallowed, his heart pounding a little more than he'd like. "What does he say?"

Hardison shrugged. "I'm a talker and I don't know him as well as you do. But think of it this way. Whose the only member of the team whose never gone off the reservation? He complains and gets annoyed but he does what you tell him and never asks why, even off the job."

A memory jostled it's way through Nate's brain. That jury job, back when everyone thought Parker was just being Parker. Nate had told Eliot to go with her to check something he hadn't even specified out and after realizing Nate meant ***now* **he'd gone. He didn't ask why, or what until he needed to know to do his job.

Hardison's voice broke through his memory. "That's not just doing his job… that's trust and loyalty in quantities I didn't even know someone in our line could Have."

Nate nodded, muttering something… maybe thanks… and turned away. He'd reached the door when he turned back one last time. "What about the horse job?" He said, mentioning the one time he could think of Eliot had gone off the reservation.

The door opened without Nate's help and the man in question stepped onto the porch. "That was for family." Eliot said. He looked and sounded almost steady but a little bit off, resigned…

Afraid.

"Who did ya think Ame's was?" Parker said following him out the door.

Nate smiled bitterly. Ames… Amie. The family who'd helped him survive as a child. They'd come first, especially since their relationship had been in it's infancy.

Sophie stood in the doorway, hesitating a moment.

Parker let go of the door as soon as she was through and went to sit next to Hardison. Eliot caught the edge of it, keeping it from shutting and holding it open as Sophie sighed and stepped out onto the porch to join them.


	6. Chapter 6: Jumping the Building

**Notes**: As of now I have the entierty of this story written. I just have to get it past the ever wonderful ALS_Wonderland whose actting as beta. Fanfic viewers who also are on Lj may also notice we are now caught up with what I have posted on my lj. With only a few more bits posted to Black King White Knight there won't be any stories posted on my lj that arn't posted here.  
**Notes:** Longest chapter yet with a lot of tieing off of loose ends (sorta?). I'm really really happy with this chapter, though my favorite scene is oddly enough a tie between the ending scene and the scene where I make my first foray into Parker/Hardison. hmm...  
As usual, this nicely polished fic is brought to you by she who should be praised: Als_wonderland. The chapter title is brought to you by TV Tropes article "Jumping the Shark".  
**Warning: Vauge and not to vauge implications of past sexual abuse.  
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**Fathers  
**_Chapter Six: Jumping the Building_

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Parker was fifteen when she decided to name herself Parker. She didn't actually start using the name for a few more months, because she was still living with Parker Paul and she was pretty sure it would be really confusing to other people if she and her foster father happened to have the same first name.

She'd never liked her real name. Her last name was always changing with whomever it was who was putting up the most recent roof over her head. She'd gotten used to her first name being shouted at her most of her life.

She'd been put into the system when she was three, when her father had killed himself and her mother in a car accident. He hadn't been drunk or anything. As a social service worker tried to explain to her years after the fact: "Sometimes things just go wrong."

Her life in the system had swung pretty low on the scale of badness a few times, though she knew from the threats that a couple of her foster families had made that there were even worse places and families to be in. She supposed her "condition" made it worse. She'd actually been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at one point, leading to that foster family throwing her out and even fewer families willing to take her in afterwards.

She'd taken it hard the first time it happened, and that was when the social worker had tried to explain her parents' death to her and from that conversation Parker had come to a non-sequitur conclusion. She was one of those things that just went wrong. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her foster families' faults. It wasn't any ones fault. There was just something wrong with her.

And that was okay.

It wasn't like there was anything she could do about it, so why worry? She'd just be herself and if that didn't work; if people got offended; if for whatever reason she got thrown out of yet another family because things didn't work out (because she scared them); if she did something that might have hurt someone who was threatening her bunny (which was hers and no one else's); hell, if she accidentally blew up something; it was okay. She was just wrong, and that wasn't her fault, so anything that happened because she was just wrong wasn't her fault. Quite simple, really.

That carried her a long way. It made the years between when she figured out she was wrong (at the age of eight), to when the world went wrong (at fourteen), more or less bearable.

At first the Jones household hadn't seemed that bad. It hadn't been any worse than any other home, and even if the father was a little creepy she wouldn't be there long enough for her to feel the need to give a damn.

After two weeks grace, to welcome her into their home, her new foster mother started traveling for work again. She'd be home a week and then gone a week, back for a couple of days and gone again.

It was the second time her foster mother left her that her foster father came into her room at night.

It was the ninth business trip that Mrs. Jones came back home early to find her husband brutally raping their fourteen year old foster child.

When her foster father claimed Parker had seduced him, her foster mother had ignored the bruises, fading and new, and called Parker a whore, a slut, and other things a normal fourteen year old girl should not have been used to being called.

But they were titles her foster father had whispered into her ear a dozen times.

She'd shut down after that. The foster mother had thrown her out and she'd been bounced to a new home. It was then that she was taken in by Parker Paul. A somewhat successful child physiologist he had bypassed the normal condition that a working single parent couldn't foster by arguing his profession might help him reach Parker better than anyone else.

It took him a week to get something other than an apathetic non-response from her. Another two passed before she started speaking in more than clipped scattered monosyllables. It was nearly a month and a half before he actually managed to break through and reach her in any way that mattered.

She'd shut herself down and closed herself off, and was telling herself that things just went wrong, and it was no one's fault, and so she wasn't allowed to feel anything about it. She was just wrong, and her life was just wrong, and if she didn't care she'd be okay.

At first she hadn't responded to him because she hadn't heard him over the roar of her own mind. When it had started to quiet, when she froze over, she didn't respond because she couldn't. When his patience and gentle prodding started to thaw her out she didn't because she was wrong, and her life was wrong, and things just went wrong when she got involved.

She didn't want him to go wrong too.

One day, just any other day, they were walking through the park together. She liked to climb trees and he'd discovered that after watching her scale every climbable tree in their backyard. When she responded or made progress of any sort he'd reward her and one reward was taking her to a park to climb trees.

They'd been walking through the park when a dog had barked at them. It hadn't been threatening but he'd flinched, obviously not particularly fond of dogs. But he didn't walk away. After taking a breath he'd walked forward and petted the dog until it wagged it's tail.

Later, when she'd asked him about, it he'd told her it was something his foster father had told him when he was a boy. "Face your fears like you greeting an old friend. Take a moment to recognize them, then embrace them without hesitation and then let them go. Never run from what you fear."

He didn't fix her. There was something wrong with her that couldn't be fixed all the way, but he reached her, taught her to face her fears, and when she was forced back into the system after six months in his care, he was the first and last person she'd called her father.

She'd ran away a week after that, escaping the foster system for good, taking nothing but her clothes, her stuffed bunny, and the name Parker.

~*~

When the group broke up Sophie had followed Eliot and Joey upstairs and into El'sbedroom. Watching and feeling useless as they settled him onto the bed and Eliot got a first aid kit to clean the cuts on his palms. A few minutes later Joey shooed both of them out the door so she could change El's clothes and finish cleaning him up.

They stood together in silence, much unsaid lingering in the air.

Almost at the same time they both made noises that could have possibly been a reluctant, murmured, apology. For separate things, and vastly different reasons, they both sought and gave forgiveness.

The tension in the air eased a little after that, and Sophie was the first to put something into words. "I understand now." She said, not explaining. "I didn't before but I do now." She shook her head and cut him off when he opened his mouth, not really sure she could put into words what she understood. "I'm still pissed as hell but I still trust you and when this is all over… I want you to know I…" She swallowed hard letting out a long breath before continuing. "I don't want just him to be happy. I want you both to be happy."

Eliot seemed a little shocked at her words. She didn't blame him. She was shocked at them herself.

He was quiet for a long moment before he turned, ducking into his room and coming back with a pistol in a holster. "'Was gonna give it ta Joey for her safety, but the way things are runnin', you should hang onto this." He bit at his lip, his usual confidence and easy calm still missing, but somehow his attitude reminded her of something else… that time ring in the MMA job.

Thinking back to that time, she realized why he was giving her the pistol and she dropped it, looking up to him with horror on her face.

There he was again, the Eliot she'd seen briefly in that ring, who'd explained his need for control to her. There was uncertainty there, and fear. He was afraid, of That Man, of his past, of the monster he knew was inside him and that maybe this time that monster would get out.

He glanced down at the gun and back up at her. "I'm not goin' down easy… but if I go down and stay down, if that thing takes hold…" He closed his eyes, emotions playing across his face in ways he would never allow himself if he hadn't been dragged back into his own personal hell. "Someone'll need to take the shot ta end him. Parker can't shoot, Hardison wouldn't, an' Nate'd put the next bullet in his own brain if it was him." He picked the gun back up and folded her hands around it, careful not to nudge the safety.. "Aim careful and don't hesitate. I…if it comes ta that you won't get two chances."

Before she could put together a response he'd turned, retreating into the guest bedroom that was likely left open specifically for him, and locked the door behind him.

Sophie was left standing in the hall with a gun and a responsibility she was awed that he'd trusted her enough to give her, and cared enough about the team to ensure someone had.

~*~

Parker observed the tag end of the exchange between Sophie and Eliot from the roof outside his window. She couldn't hear what was being said but she could guess at what it meant.

She ducked to the side when Eliot came into the room, watching from just a corner as he sat on the bed and put his face in his hands, shoulders slumped and body shaking. He was behind closed doors for the first time since the Picnic House and she figured he was letting out what he'd been holding in.

She briefly considered leaving him be, she knew what it was like to need a quiet place to break down for a little while, but maybe…

She pushed open the window slowly and slid into the room, ignoring Eliot's growled order to get out. She could hear the tremor in his voice.

She didn't look at him, instead walking to the far side of the room and studying nothing, just to give him some space. After a few moments, when she was sure he wouldn't bodily force her out, she tried giving that wisdom thing one more shot.

"One of my foster parents once told me you should face your fears like embracing an old friend. I only sort of got it then. When you said falling in love was like repelling it made me remember something I decided later. You should face your fears like you jump off a building. Leap and swan dive off into them and trust you've prepared enough to survive it. Trust yourself... and luck I guess."

She turned around to face him, a rueful "Parker" grin on her face. "You're afraid. Afraid there's something wrong with you, that that thing inside of you is going to win, that you'll loose control and hurt someone you care about and it's gonna be your fault. You've spent your whole life afraid of who you were made to be, and that maybe somehow it's your fault that you are who you are."

He looked at her, obviously surprised, but there was something about the way he looked that she knew she was getting somewhere. She wasn't sure if it was right but she was certain she had done something and was gonna go with that.

She crossed over to him and leaned over, meeting his eyes - though the way he inched backwards suggested she'd probably gotten too far into the personal bubble thing Sophie was telling her about. Still…

She pressed onward. "It's not." She said, Parker matter of factly. "Sometimes things just happen. Bad things happen and sometimes you just can't do anything about it." She looked toward the next room and back. "But sometimes you can, but you don't know if you can, if you refuse to jump off the building and see if you can."

Without another word she spun around and sat next to him, leaning sideways to rest her head on his shoulder.

They sat there in quiet as seconds stretched into minutes.

A rough, calloused, hand found Parker's slim one, fingers twinning through hers briefly before letting go as a long breath escaped Eliot. He didn't relax, not yet, not with everything still spiraling out of control, but when his fingers slipped away Parker could almost feel the tension easing just a little.

He stood and walked out of the room without looking back. Parker hurried to follow, internally cheering for herself and her awesome wisdom powers, and beckoned to Sophie to follow.

~*~

Sophie's question of "what now" spoken to the group, was met by a long silence.

Eliot spoke. "I'm tired of runnin' scared, playin' by his rules. What d'ya say we start playing by ours?"

Something in that moment, changed. Like a slow breath out and a deep breath in, the crazy spiral that had been that day, ended. They'd been recovering the best they could, and now they were ready to regain the ground they'd lost.

~*~

It would be a few hours later, after they'd developed and put into motion a basic but effective con Hardison insisted would be forever called the Kentucky Shuffle, that Nate ordered them to all call it a night. It was midnight and even if they all could function longer without sleep, he wanted everyone on their game when things went down.

Everyone also needed time to decompress.

Hardison had retreated to the den where he'd set up shop, followed a moment later by Parker. Sophie had stayed out on the back porch.

Eliot and Nate had walked together into the house and without a word of confirmation or they'd headed together up the stairs to the Guest (but-really-Eliot's) Room.

Eliot knew he and Nate needed to talk about this, about tomorrow, about a lot of things. He knew they should have talked about this all a long time ago. But…

Joey came out of El's room and stopped them before they disappeared into Eliot's. "Elie…" She said softly. "He woke up… he's asking for you. I…"

Eliot nodded, giving Joey a quick one armed hug and slipped into his nephew's room.

"Hey little man" He said, closing the door behind him and looking around before letting his eyes settle on the twelve year old sitting curled up with his comforter, at the head of his bed.

The boy had always been small. He was probably like his mom, destined to hit something resembling a growth spurt in his mid to late teens. Hell, Eliot probably would have hit a decent one himself if he'd been living under half decent circumstances at any point as a child.

Still… small for his age, dirty blonde hair the boy'd been growing out since he'd started to hero worship his uncle over the summer, bright blue eyes, and scared.

Yeah. It wasn't at all like seeing himself as a kid. Not fucking at all.

"Uncle Eliot?" El said, his voice soft and unsure.

"What?" Eliot asked softly, coming to sit by the boy on the bed. His mind was spinning, trying to prepare a million reassurances and answers he could make as convincing as possible.

Yes, El was safe.  
No, That Man would be dead long before he could ever even catch a glimpse of El.  
Yes, he'd be okay.  
Yes, it was okay that he was scared, Eliot would be too, so…

"Is Marie going to be okay?"

Eliot's mind spun to a halt and a bitter, smile crossed his face. Of course that would be what he'd be worrying about. "Yeah kid, she'll be alright."

"I… I know I'm her big brother." El said. "And she's out there with him all alone and it's night. She's still scared of the dark. What if she has a nightmare? I won't be there to keep her safe." El looks away to the spot where his bed was wedged into the corner of the room. "When she has a nightmare I'm the one she wakes up and she sleeps between me and the wall so I can keep her safe."

Eliot looked up and away, thinking back years and years, to his own bed wedged into a corner for the exact same reason. He shifted, reaching out to pull the boy into a one armed hug next to him. "Listen, I'm gonna tell you a secret 'bout little sisters. It took me years ta figure out but it's important." He looked down, meeting El's eyes. "Our job is to protect them, but their job is to protect themselves and us when we can't. They have a little kind of strength, but you'd be amazed how much they can do with it. She'll be fine. Promise."

El nodded and looked down but stayed leaning against Eliot. They sat together for a long time, until El's breathing had evened out and he'd slipped into sleep.

~*~

Once the door was closed Joey looked from the door to Nate and back to the door. She shook her head slowly, sadly. "I never thanked you. Never really got a chance I guess… but I always wished I could."

Nate watched her, waiting a moment for her to explain before gently prodding. "For what?"

She gave a soft, half bitter laugh. "For this, for helping him forgive himself enough to come back to me. For keeping him alive and sane and whatever else you did for him in that cell…" Her voice trailed off as she looked back to the door. "And for that." She added barely above a whisper. She let out a slow breath.

Joey turned back to Nate, a brittle, broken smile on her face that made her almost look like a little girl. "From the time I was eleven to the time he finally found me twelve years later he barely touched me… or anyone…At least not how it mattered." Her mouth opened halfway and she seemed to struggle for words for a second. "What… what That Man did to him… It took me years to understand."

She looked down, swallowed, and found the words she'd been looking for. "He was broken you know. Shattered. I never… When he sent me into the system I… I was the only thing holding him together and he just fell apart… went crazy. So much, he didn't even know it anymore. So much, he convinced himself he wasn't. And I pushed him away." She was strangely calm, though somehow Nate had a feeling Joey didn't cry any more than Eliot did. She looked back up, meeting his eyes. "But you… you fixed him. You reached him and made him better, made him… showed him how to be… human. When all the world would have called him a lost cause, a disaster… you were kind and reminded him of something we both lost as kids and he never got back." She let out one slow breath. "So thank you."

She turned to leave, going to her bedroom door and pausing before turning back. "And um… you have my permission to date my brother. Though convincing the kids'll be a little harder."

With that she was gone and Nate leaned against the wall, letting out one long slow breath.

~*~

He should sleep. He really should. He had been up for nearly forty-eight hours already, which was actually more or less par and course for him. Hardison was a caffeine junkie for a lot of reasons, including but not limited to, the fact he actually did suffer from insomnia and most sleeping meds made his head way too foggy.

He didn't make a big deal out of it but Hardison was actually a certified genius. IQ of 169 and all. But it seemed to also mean his brain was wired differently than other people, and the same parts of his brain that allowed him to code and hack at two or three times the speed most other hackers could, unfortunately also seemed to mean his mind rarely if ever worked at a speed conducive to sleep.

Which, with the added bonus of everything that had happened in the past fourteen hours serving to increase the amount of information his mind was processing by a few gigs a second, he wasn't actually likely to be getting any sleep tonight, or tomorrow night if he wasn't lucky.

So instead of sleeping he got on his computer and started looking up psychologists that specialized in Dissociative Identity Disorder, adult survivors of childhood abuse, and Post Traumatic Stress disorder. He'd make a list and then start hunting down the best in the field. Money would obviously be no object and really, location wouldn't be either.

The issue would be convincing Eliot to go, but Nate would have that covered.

He was so focused on his work, his mission, and trying to channel his dozen trains of thought into one or two to focus that he didn't notice Parker had followed him into the den.

At least not until she closed his laptop and sat on the desk behind it, all but forcing him to look at her. "You're not going to understand this, and that's okay." She said. "But I wanted to tell you I want to go repelling with you. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I've been afraid that you wouldn't feel like that, and you'd say mean things, and things would go wrong, and we'd both fall really hard onto metaphorical pavement, but I want to go repelling with you. And I know now's not the best time, and I'm not sure if we're both ready, but I want to go repelling with you." She gave a small, forced, Parker grin and sighed. "Well… just thought I'd let you know."

She turned to leave and it took Hardison until she was almost at the door, to recover. He didn't want to go repelling, hell it scared the crap out of him, but this was Parker. "Hey Parker."

She turned to look back at him.

"Any time you want to, just let me know. I want to go repelling with you too."

That brilliant Parker smile he wished he'd see more often told him, even if he didn't really understand all she'd just said, he'd said the right thing.

She slipped out the door and Hardison turned back to the computer, tempted briefly to start looking up repelling tips, but shook it off. There would be time later for that. Tonight was about Eliot.

A moment later Parker reappeared with a blanket. She lay down on the nearby couch and Hardison opened a separate word document, and started to type out an outline for what he needed to do and look for. Parker had told him one time when they were sharing a room on a job and he'd been worried he was keeping her awake, that she thought that the sound of him typing was soothing "Kinda like rain but not so gloomy".

It was only a few minutes before she was asleep.

At least one of them would have a good night's rest.

~*~

The house was quiet when Eliot slipped out of El's room, checked on the security measures Hardison had installed earlier one more time for good measure, and slipped into his room.

Nate was sitting on the bed, dozing a little against the wall.

For a minute Eliot was tempted to slip out and leave him there, not sure either of them were ready to deal with what today meant for them.

But Parker was right (though that sentence alone made his head hurt). He couldn't run from this. Face his fears. Jump off the building.

He came to that conclusion right as Nate woke up.

"Eliot." He said, his voice not betraying anything.

"Nate I…" Eliot started to say, not even sure what was going to come out. Apology? Explanation? Defense of himself, and trying to shift off the stigma he was sure the team was now attaching to him "Poor little Eliot Spencer, he's so mad and tortured because he got abused and raped as a kid. It's all an act to try to show the world he's not afraid." Even if he knew they would never think that he'd been pulled too far into his nightmare scenario to really believe it the way he should.

"Don't" Nate said, cutting him off and standing. He walked over to Eliot, resting his hands gently on Eliot's shoulders. "No explanations. No apologies." He let out a breath. "What you went through… it made you who you are, but it wasn't the only thing that did. It made you hard, but protecting Joey made you a good man who could survive in this world of evil men. You're still a good man, you're still Eliot Spencer, and the team still knows who you are. Now they just understand why."

Slowly Nate drew him in to an embrace, holding Eliot like he had years ago, in that cell in Cairo when he'd been beaten, too weak to sit up and left at the mercy of old memories. Held him like he did when Eliot woke from bad dreams about a worse reality.

Like he did when, for just a brief moment, the man who'd become the team's white knight protector, who for all the violence he committed, just made them feel safe, needed to shrug off his armor and be taken care of.

Exhaustion hit him like a tidal wave, adrenalin giving out for the first time since the phone call that morning and if Nate hadn't been holding him there might have been some very undignified collapsing occurring.

He got his legs back under him and Nate helped him sit on the bed, shrug out of his blood stained shirt, and kick off his shoes. They laid down together, and as blackness was threatening to pull him under, three words bubbled up from his chest, up his throat, and out his lips in a whisper.

The last thing he heard as the darkness claimed him - and that hell of a day came to an end - were those three words, repeated back to him.


	7. Chapter 7: Too Late

**Notes:**Longest chapter yet (again). This is the last main chapter. I have a short epilouge of sorts that ties off *most* of the story lines where they need tieing. Being that this universe will go on past this point (and I've already got a half dozen stories bouncing around in my head) there will still be some tie ins later but hopefully I'll get all the important stuff.  
Lastly if anyone's been wandering around Black King White Knight they might notice some things are a changin'. I've orginized my BKWK stories into a chronological order and am systematically fixing the little now cannon errors (mostly revolving around season two not having offices). Don't worry though. All I'm changing are the details.  
Oh, and for anyone who remembers the Cell #8 chapter that wanted to be a trainning montage? This chapter really wanted to be one of those cool episodes where they intercut the finale with music.  
As usual, this nicely polished fic is brought to you by she who should be praised: als_wonderland.  
**Warnings: Vauge and not so vauge implications of past sexual abuse, angst, and symbolisim.**

**

* * *

**

**Fathers  
**_Chapter Seven: Too Late  
_

* * *

**Lawrence, Kentucky  
20 years ago**

"…I just want you to know I would have fought for you until the end. But this is for the best. Stay safe. Love, Elie."

Elie let out a long breath and sighed, putting the letter into the envelope and sealing it up. That was the last thing. Everything was already set. He just needed to leave the letter so Willy could find it and make sure it got to Joey. Then he'd just grab Willy's keys, go into the garage and fade away into a memory. This town would forget him soon enough, but Joey would be safe and that was what really mattered wasn't it?

He stood up from the stool, checking the kitchen clock. It was past midnight and the house had been quiet a long time. No one would be getting up for another four or five hours. That should be enough time. And even if they did, who checked the garage first thing in the morning?

Just leave the note on the counter.

He picked up the keys to Willy's car.

Walked out to the house's garage where He kept the family car. Shut the door and windows before turning on the car, to make sure no one heard it start up.

He sat in the seat for a moment, already slipping away, even though he knew that was just in his head.

He got out of the car, went into the corner of the garage near the exhaust and laid down.

He was Tired. Sleep wouldn't ease his kind of Tired, but sleep would bring Rest.

Everything was taken care of, as best he could. He could lay down now, and Rest. The pain would be over soon.

\

~*~

Eliot woke up with a start, coughing, pulling away from the warmth of the exhaust of the tailpipe it took a moment to recognize as Nate's breath. He sat up, taking a few deep breaths, trying to pull himself back to the present. Pull himself away from the dream and memory.

Nate sat up, rubbing his eyes, disoriented. Eliot knew he wasn't used to being woken by Eliot's nightmare **after** Eliot was already awake. Nate was a light sleeper when he wasn't drunk and the first sign of thrashing normally was all he needed.

A cautious hand touched Eliot's shoulder and he tensed. He hated the fact that yesterday morning Nate would have pulled him into an embrace.

And that yesterday morning, Eliot would have been sure he wouldn't have reacted violently to Nate doing so.

"Eliot."

"Bad dream." Eliot said. The hand on his shoulder lifted away immediately. He turned, a feat, since he was between Nate and the wall without much room to maneuver, and caught at Nate's hand, shaking his head. "No." He said simply, hoping Nate understood he hadn't been dreaming about that. Nate met his eyes, the same unasked question lingering there. He never asked what Eliot dreamt about. He never once asked what memories had become the nightmares that haunted, and had long ago driven Eliot to sleep in short brief bursts that rarely allowed dreaming.

But Eliot knew he wondered. Knew he wanted to know. Wanted to help ease away those old wounds like he had the scars Eliot carried. Eliot hadn't been willing to share before. Too often his mind slipped between one and another but never failed to slip back to when he first learned fear.

Eliot closed his eyes and sighed. "It was three nights before I sent Joey away. I tried to kill myself." Nate blinked, non-comprehending. "I'd had enough." Eliot said with a matter of fact shrug, sliding off the foot of the bed and heading out the door.

He needed air. He needed to clear his head. He had to be on his game today.

~*~

Breakfast was a strange affair that morning. The Leverage group was a rowdy bunch and with the breakfast feast Eliot and Joey had gotten together to feed the seven of them there was more than the usual mess going on. It didn't completely mask the fact that the group's mood as a whole couldn't seem to decide between trying to cheer up the little boy in their midst (with little success), and being somber in respect of Marie still being missing.

They were trying to act as normal as physically possible but they were all waiting for the phone to ring. They were all waiting for the next move to begin so everything could be over.

None of them liked the plan. None of them liked that the plan had Eliot going in alone. Nate was watching him as Eliot worked over the stove, calling El over to help him with the latest batch of pancakes to replenish the plate. Parker and Hardison had utterly demolished it before the others had even gotten to it.

He seemed stable enough. He'd pulled back and away from what he was going through but didn't seem to be crossing into Black Knight territory.

But his confession about his dream had Nate worried. Okay, the entire plan had him worried. It depended on Eliot's mental stability holding through to the end, in face of all this.

And Nate now knew that Eliot had actually taken steps to kill himself **before** Cairo, where he'd been suicidal for god only knew how long before Nate met him.

It was hard to reconcile the Eliot they knew now, with the Eliot then. After all, wasn't Eliot famous because he always survived? Wasn't it his survival instincts that made him such a fighter?

But Nate knew different. Back in the beginning, when this all had started after that wedding fiasco Eliot had clarified for him. "Not survival, self preservation. There's a difference. Self preservation knows when your best option is to just lay down an die."

His only comfort was the statement that Eliot had said next. "When that happens you better have a lot of good reasons to keep on fighting." He'd said Nate had been his good reason a couple of times. Back in Cairo when they first met Nate had been his only reason.

Now Eliot had seven very good reasons. Nate hoped that was enough.

He and Sophie were finally getting a taste of the pancakes Hardison was accusing Eliot of lacing with crack when the telephone rang.

Eliot answered it, freezing up and answering with a voice that had just a hint of fear in it. "…Yes Daddy."

Nate knew Eliot was playing along with a madman, at least in part, but hearing those words twisted, knowing what had been done… it fed the already blazing urge Nate had to throttle That Man.

By the set expressions of the others at the table, Nate had a feeling he was far from alone in the sentiment. If they had their way Eliot would not be doing the hitting this time around.

At least not all of it.

"…I'll bring it Daddy. May I please speak to Marie?" Eliot closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "I am sorry. I'll be there soon. Love you too."

Definitely not all of it.

~*~

They were to go to the Picnic House again. Specifically, Eliot was supposed to go to the picnic house. Alone. With cash. Not that any one of them thought the cash was the important part to anyone involved.

Eliot was, seemingly, going in alone. He had his com in though, and Nate, Parker, and Sophie were making their way there separately, ready to pull in and provide backup. Hardison was staying home with Joey and El 'just in case'.

Eliot took one last look over his shoulder, drawing in a sharp breath when he saw a small blue eyed boy looking out the upstairs window. He told himself that it was just El.

He ignored that he'd left El with Hardison as the hacker had decided to take it upon himself to keep the boy entertained by introducing him to the joys of "Wow".

He turned back to look down the road, trying to shake off the chilling sensation, putting the truck into gear.

This world will never be what I expected And if I don't belong who would have guessed it?

_I will not leave alone, everything I own_

_To make you feel like it's not too late_

_It's never too late…_

Eliot went in alone, but it was only a minute or two before he addressed them over the coms. "He's not here." There was something shaken, off, in his voice. Nate wondered at it, but didn't comment.

The others were already on their way out of the car and into the picnic house. Eliot was standing outside, leaning against the barn with his eyes closed, looking like he was trying to hold it together.

"Anything inside?" Nate asked and Eliot hesitated only half beat before shaking his head. Nate didn't need the small hint of a lie, probably only present because it was so against Eliot's instincts to lie to him. He could tell by the way Eliot was reacting that there had been some small surprise left for him inside. Even if Eliot was trying to keep control it had gotten a true reaction out of him.

But Nate, and the others, left it alone. They knew all they needed. If Eliot wanted to tell them he would but they wouldn't go prodding further into this nightmare.

"What do we do now?" Sophie asked. "Just go back and wait again? We need to stop playing along with this."

"We have to be careful." Nate insisted, taking brief shelter in doing his job and playing his part. "Lawrence has a hostage. We take this too fast and she could wind up dead."

"We take this to slow and she will be dead!" Parker argued, as usual saying what none of them actually wanted said out loud.

There was a pained, awkward silence broken by the sound of Nate's cell phone ringing. He picked it up, seeing it was Hardison calling. "Hardison?"

Hardison's voice was soft and shallow, laced with panic. "He took her."

Nate let the shock show on his face. "Who… Joey?"

"I don't know how… lord, Eliot's going to kill me, but Lawrence found a way through my system. I didn't even know he was in the house until I heard the front door slam. I grabbed El and got out as soon as we could."

Hardison was rambling, worried, anxiety plain in his voice and Nate could only think of a million different reasons for it. "Okay, just stay calm. Take El and go to someplace safe. There's a train station in town not far from where you are. Stay there and wait for us to get in touch.

They hung up and Nate turned to the others. "He took Joey, Hardison got El out. They're going somewhere safe." He spoke bluntly, this wasn't a situation to soften the news.

Eliot's reaction was immediate. He took in a sharp breath, his posture, his entire demeanor changing as he'd let it out. It was a shift to something more violent, getting into the headspace he stayed in while he fought. Nate only hoped he could stay there without going further.

Another sharp breath and something inside seemed to give way. Eliot moved, brushing past Sophie, not even trying to avoid bumping into her, as he broke away from the circle and the barn all together.

He'd need space to get his mind in order, deal with that this was happening, before they could take action.

They waited a few minutes before Nate spoke, calling over the com. "Eliot?"

Silence.

"Eliot, it's time to come back."

Nothing.

"Eliot."

"He's gone." Hardison said over the com, actual panic rising in his voice. "He took out his com. He's gone off script."

Sophie started fumbling with her jacket and bag. After a moment she looked up at Nate, her eyes wide. She didn't explain, just opened her jacket so he could see where she'd attached a holster for a gun on the inside.

It was empty.

The bottom of his stomach dropped out. This was so far off book…

He dialed Eliot's cell in a last vain effort, getting immediately sent to voice mail. "Eliot!"

Even if I say It'll be alright

_Still I hear you say you want to end your life_

_Now and again we try to just stay alive_

_Maybe we'll turn it around_

_Cause it's not to late, it's never to late_

"Spencer! Spencer! Wake up damnit!"

Elie coughed, words penetrating through the haze, dragging him back to the lucid world. He coughed again, his lungs burning a little even as the cool night air threatened to chill him further. Soft, night damp, grass beneath him reminded him that he'd gone to sleep lying on concrete trusting he wouldn't wake up.

"Come on son. Don't make me take you to a hospital. I don't wanna be the one to give Lawrence a reason to hit you."

Willy. It was Willy's voice. Willy had found him.

He opened his eyes, blinking until his sight cleared and he could see the worried man standing above him. "wh… how?"

"You idiot boy. I could kill you for scaring me like that. Aint you got any sense in that head of yours?" Elie just blinked up at him. He didn't know how to respond, or explain. He'd never really thought he'd have to. The fact Willy was pissed at him, something Elie had only experienced the night he brought Ames home an hour late from their date, wasn't helping.

He closed his eyes and looked away, slumping against the ground wishing it would just absorb him, take him. "Tired." He whispered.

The hands that touched him a moment later were gentle, somehow bypassing his normal dislike to contact, easing him so he was sitting up. "I know son. I know" Willy whispered. "but you gotta get up and keep walking. What's your sister gonna do if you lay down an' die."

Elie mumbled a protest but instinctively helped, sitting up under his own power and when those hands urged him to his feet he rose and let them stabilize him before he opened his eyes. He felt like a puppet with most of his strings cut, but he was moving. Willy was telling him to and he did what Willy said, always. After the life he'd lived, it was the only way he could really think of showing the man how much he meant to Elie.

"Walk with me." Willy instructed. "Walk with me and tell me what this was about." Elie nodded and they started to walk. It was slow at first as Elie got his feet under him and his equilibrium back, but apparently he hadn't been in there long enough for any kind of serious damage.

They'd reached the stables and were walking through the darkened hallway when Willy broke the silence. "What happened?" They both knew he meant more than what Elie was up to in the garage.

"Nothing. I'm just tired."

"Something happened. You were tired last week. You were tired last year. You've been tired as long as I've known you. But you weren't trying to kill yourself then." There was a long pained pause before he pressed on, making the logical guess. "Was it Joey?" Elie looked over at Willy, surprise showing on his face

"This afternoon, you were desperate to get her as far from that man as possible. Really desperate. So far, you've trusted yourself to keep her safe, but this afternoon you were scared." He trailed off. "You've been set on just surviving and protecting her until now. What changed?"

"I have to get her out." Elie said not looking at him. "I can't do this anymore. I… If I die… there'll be a body. He won't be able to claim I ran away because I'm a restless youngster. The town'll… my friends… they won't just look away if I'm dead. They'll make sure she's alright." He closed his eyes. "And the pain will stop."

Willy's hand touched his shoulder and he winced away, hating himself for it but there was too much. Willy normally knew not to touch him. Everyone knew Elie didn't like to be touched. "What happened?" Willy prodded one more time.

"…He called her pretty last week." Elie said, barely at a whisper. "First nice thing he's said to her in years. Yesterday he bought her ribbons for her hair."

"He's drunk and playing with half a deck. Maybe he's just being nice."

"She's almost thirteen." Elie muttered, the words coming out as if he'd been declaring her terminally ill.

"What?" Willy asked, not understanding.

"She's almost thirteen. When I was almost thirteen he started noticing me. He brought home a baseball cap. Got me a birthday present." His voice turned bitter. "A month later he gave me another special present."

"…Spencer…" There was horror there, just a hint of it, just the beginning of a comprehension there.

"She's almost thirteen." He said, turning back to meet Willy's eyes. "I need to get her out. I get her out and it's over. It all ends. After that I don't care, it's way too late for me ta care. I just want to end it before it's to late for her too."

Willy let out a long slow breath. Elie could see rage and grief battling across his face before he took another breath and spoke. "I'll help you get her out." Elie opened his mouth to argue, to say that it couldn't work, that if Willy so much as tried the Lawrence's would bury him before it did Elie any good. Willy shook his head. "It's a gamble but I think I have a plan, and this is something I should have done a long time ago." Willy chewed his lip then nodded. "We can end this. I just need you to hang on a little while longer. Then it'll be over. Can you do that?"

Elie nodded jerkily. For Willy he could hold himself together a little longer.

This world will never see this side reflected

_And if there's something wrong who would have guessed it_

_And I have left alone everything that I own_

_To make you feel like it's not too late_

_It's never too late_

No answer. No answer on Eliot's cell. According to Hardison, he'd smashed it the day before.

The plan had been going smoothly. Hardison had found the wire taps and hidden cameras and everything That Man was using to monitor the Picnic House and the Phillips Household early on in their stay. Eliot had been able to predict his actions nearly to a T. Joey had already put herself in to act as bait and the others had been surprised to find Eliot needed little convincing to let her do so after they had a brief, private, chat.

Joey had been given a com and half a dozen tracking devices hidden in her clothes and on her body. Hardison had left a loophole anyone with basic coding would be able to find, relying on a basic something or other Nate hadn't really had the processing capacity at that moment to understand.

Eliot had made it clear to the others that the best way to draw That Man out would be to make him believe Eliot was breaking under the pressure and give him a perceived bargaining chip. As a kid, That Man had broken him to the bridle and kept him there with threats to Joey. Once he felt like he'd managed to return Eliot to that headspace, he wouldn't be afraid to face a career Hitter. Until that confrontation, Eliot would play a role, himself, slipping back and breaking down.

They knew there was a risk. That it was only a matter of time before something gave. But Eliot had insisted it was the quickest way to end this. The quickest way to get Marie home.

Now Eliot was racing toward a confrontation and Nate didn't even know if it was the White Knight or the Black who was going in.

Or which would be the one to come out again.

Hardison's voice over the com broke Nate's train of thought. "I activated the tracking device." It took Nate a moment to remember how a year or more ago he had managed to convince Eliot to let them implant a tracking device in his body as a precaution against the more painful pitfalls Hitters were doomed to experience at least a few times in their career: capture. "Get in the car. I'll tell you how to follow him."

They piled into the car praying they'd reach Eliot before it was too late.

Even if you say it'll be alright

_Still I hear you say you want to end your life_

_Now and again we try to just stay alive_

_Maybe we'll it around cause_

_It's not too late, it's never too late._

Joey hadn't said a word since the woman came to the door and took mama into another room to tell her the bad news. Elie knew, that Joey knew what this meant, what was about to happen. She wouldn't look at Elie. After years of spending every possible moment together when at home, they were now on opposite sides of the room and Joey was making no move to correct that.

When Elie walked over to her she stiffened, not looking up, refusing to meet his eyes. Betrayal, hurt, fear, grief. Everything he never wanted to see in his sister.

"Joey, Joey, listen to me alright?" He put his hands on her shoulders, willing her to just look at him. "I'm sorry. But this… this is just how things have to go. I… I can't do this any more. I'm not going to make it much longer. I need to know you're safe." She wouldn't meet his eyes, wouldn't speak. "I need you to go with this woman an…and try and make a life for yourself. Take care of yourself, be good, and work hard. You can be someone, have a decent life, get away from here… far away."

She still wouldn't meet his eyes but when he pulled her in for one last hug, clinging tightly to her knowing he'd probably die before he saw her again, she clung back even tighter.

Later he'd remember bits and pieces. The lady coming out. His mother starting to cry. Joey taking the lady's hand and declining the chance to hug her mother one last time. The door slamming shut behind them. Joey looking out the back window of the car, finally meeting his eyes just before she disappeared around a corner.

Standing there, feeling nothing.

The World we knew it won't come back

Eliot walked into the old garage on the back acres of one of the Lawrence's estates. His eyes skipped over the sight of That Man to behind him, where Joey sat, arms wrapped around a small figure even though her hands were cuffed together, the links looped around an exposed pipe.

The time we lost we can't get back

A small blonde head turned, Marie's scared blue eyes meeting his across the room. From the distance he couldn't tell the difference between her and Joey at that age.

_The life we had won't be ours again_

He turned his eyes back to That Man, Andrew Lawrence. Standing in the middle of a time decayed garage, the monster from his childhood had been replace by a balding middle aged man with thinning features, small eyes, and ragged clothes. He smiled, showing tobacco-yellowed teeth and Eliot felt the ghost of a sizzle and burn of a cigar being put out in his skin.

He bit down the fear, the anger, the desire to **kill**. He saw red but breathed through it. Standing straighter, shedding the role he'd played, he met Andrew Lawrence's eyes. Eliot smiled and fear played across Lawrence's face. In the back of his mind Hardison's voice suggested some suitable movie quotes for this moment when he took revenge. It pulled him back and Eliot's smile faded. "Joey, cover Marie's eyes." He said coldly, never taking his eyes off That Man.

In one motion Eliot drew the gun he'd taken off of Sophie earlier, clicked off the safety and pointed it at the man in front of him. He didn't like guns, but he knew how to use them. He took a breath, steadied himself, aimed, and fired.

This world will never be what I expected.

Spencer had been standing off to the side, uncomfortable in his tux and bored with having to keep an eye on his little sis who was much too excited to be a flower girl and far too young to be forced to stand still for this long. He'd been thinking about how much he was looking forward to cake and ice cream Mama had promised him when her Boyfriend, his stepfather he amended himself, since the vows were now over and there had been a suitably icky sight of seeing his mama kiss someone, called him and Joey over.

They walked together onto the stage to meet their mother and new dad. The man knelt down to be eye level with the two kids, smiling brightly at them. "Hey there you two." He said softly. "I'm your father now. I promise to take good care of you." He smiled at Spencer and Spencer smiled back, relieved. Mom's boyfriend had never liked him or Joey. He'd yelled and sometimes he grabbed Spencer a little too hard. But he was promising to take care of them and people always did what they promised. Things would be better now, for everyone.

"Okay daddy." Eliot said, smiling brightly. The assembled guests cheered, but the man's smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

And if I don't belong…

The bullet hit it's target and Andrew Lawrence fell to the floor.

Dead.

Even if you say it'll be alright

_Still I hear you say you want to end your life_

_Now and again we try to just stay alive_

_Maybe we'll turn it around cause it's not to late_

_It's never to late_

They'd arrived at the scene in time to hear a single gunshot. They moved quickly, surging out of the car.

They didn't make it to the door before Joey emerged with Maria. Both were crying but at the horrified looks on their faces Joey shook her head and looked down, trying to sooth Maria. "Eliot's alive. That Man is dead."

She stepped to the side and Nate went forward, hearing Sophie hold the others back.

He entered the dark garage and saw Eliot crouched beside That Man's corpse, his face obscured by his hair and posture betraying nothing. A pistol that had been emptied of it's remaining rounds sat nearby.

Nate moved cautiously toward Eliot, trying to determine what state of mind the Hitter was in, and if it was safe to try to comfort him.

Eliot broke the silence, his voice calm, soft, and cold. "He had to die to end the threat. If I didn't one of you would have." Nate let out a long breath. He hadn't consciously thought about it, what they were planning on doing with Lawrence once they took him down. They all wanted revenge for what he'd done, but he had nothing to take but his life, and Nate had to admit maybe, when it was one of their own, they weren't above taking that.

Eliot turned to look up at Nate, face unreadable. "I hurt people. I've killed. A little more won't make a difference, but I won't let that man hurt any of my family, even if it's just by being their first kill." He looked back down. "I don't like guns. They make it not personal. It's easy ta kill without feeling a thing. I thought… but…"

Nate closed his eyes, swallowing the bile in his throat and biting down the horror at what Eliot had barely avoided. Eliot's violence was born from the abuse dealt by that man. It was something Eliot struggled to control, to keep the monster controlled. He'd known taking revenge on Eliot's abuser might make him lose it, make him let go, let the Black Knight take hold.

He'd killed that man with a gun to make it about protecting the team. Not about revenge.

"It felt good." Eliot confessed. "First kill in years that's felt good."

"He tortured you for seven years." Nate said softly, resting a hand on Eliot's shoulder, giving him an anchor. "I'd be more worried if you didn't feel anything."

"It's over now. He can't hurt us. You can't hurt him. We're still alive. It's over."

_Maybe we'll turn it all around cause it's not too late_

_It's never too late_

There was clean up and wrap up to do, but mostly they had to leave. They wiped down the few things that had been touched and disappeared, leaving only the gun behind. It was a hitter's weapon, and police would have to trace it through five hostile countries to even pin it to an alias.

No one spoke more than necessary. No one was even sure what there could possibly be left to say.

It was when they were driving back up the driveway to the Phillips house and had turned the corner that Marie spoke for the first time since she'd been rescued. "Dad's car! He's home!" She pointed toward the blue car parked in front of the house.

Sophie smiled, as after Hardison had rewired the tapped lines at the house the night before, Josephine had called her husband. Hardison had met him at the train station earlier to make sure he stayed out of harms way until the all clear was given.

A few moments later El came bounding out the front door followed quickly by his father with Hardison exiting last.

The car had barely stopped when Marie was opening her door and scrambling out of her seat belt and onto the ground, running to her father and big brother. Joey followed with only a little more caution, the family completely reunited by the time everyone else had climbed out of the car.

Hardison joined the team in watching the Phillips take stock of each other and reassure themselves and each other (both children and parents) that they were going to be okay.

Marie must have said something then, because her father picked her up to sit on his shoulders, settling her before holding out one hand for El to hold and wrapping the other around Joey. They walked back toward the house.

Before they disappeared El glanced up to his sister then back to the team, meeting Eliot's eyes and then followed his family inside.

In that moment, Sophie saw a young boy's ghost finally laid to rest. It was too late for Eliot, too late to save him the way that really mattered, too late to give him even the half a chance they'd all had.

But it wasn't too late for El, and in El, Sophie saw what they all saw. Eliot as he might have been, as he should have been, like some cosmic reset button had been pressed after the mistakes were undone.

Eliot sighed and started walking toward the house. Parker moved to catch up to him with Hardison not far behind.

Nate came to stand beside Sophie and they watched together as the other three made their way. There was a trace of something there between them, the old companionship that had come before. Before Sam's death, before the team split up, before yesterday. A companionship that had been the undertone of a romance that hadn't happened, a tie that tied the two of them together like it tied all five of them together.

Understanding.

Normal, well adjusted people did not become thieves and they did not become the best at what they did. Those on the team were all who they'd been made to be a long time ago. Part of the reason they could come together like this, why they could work together when they'd spent their whole lives alone, was they all knew that they were who they'd been made to be and it was far too late to change that.

It was too late to make Parker a normal, completely sane woman. Something had just gone wrong.

It was too late for Hardison to go back onto the grid and live a normal life when everything he's capable of, what defines who he is, is illegal at best.

It was too late for Sophie to learn to tell the truth and stop playing her part and learn to live in a world other than the one she was born into.

It was too late for Nate to go back to seeing the world in black and white instead of shades of gray.

It was too late to save Elie, and too late to fix Eliot.

Laughter and sounds of a scuffle broke through her bleak reverie. Up ahead Hardison and Eliot had gotten into a scuffle and were rough housing while Parker cheered them on, calling out something Sophie wasn't sure even made sense to the other two involved.

Clearly it didn't, because the scuffle stopped while the Hardison and Eliot turned to look at Parker with equally perplexed expressions. Parker's next comment was too soft for Sophie to hear but caused Hardison to back peddle with a shout of "Hell NO".

And Eliot? He laughed. His face lighting up the way it did sometimes, and Sophie felt a small smile cross her face.

Nate patted her shoulder and went forward to act as referee before the kids got into any more mischief, leaving her with four words and a hint she hadn't been alone in her train of thought. "It's not too late."

_It's not too late, it's never too late_


	8. Chapter 8: Epilouge

**Notes:** The last chapter is here. It took a little longer than expected partially due to sucky writting on my part causing a massive re-edit and whatnot.  
This has been a fun and interesting ride (though depressing) but the ride will continue on in this verse so don't be sad.  
As usual, this nicely polished fic is brought to you by she who should be praised: als_wonderland.  
This short "Note" section is brought to you by: Packing for college causing chaos.

* * *

**Fathers  
**_Epilouge_

* * *

By the literal definition of the word, Sophie was a bastard. She'd never known her father, never had a real last name. Her mother was a grifter; one of the best Europe had ever seen. There was a fairly good chance that Sophie was the illegitimate daughter of a duke, or earl, or equally important person of some European nation or another, but she was probably never going to find out.

Sophie had been trained to be a grifter more or less from the womb. Her mother had used her pregnancy and eventually the infant in her arms, and toddler at her knee to help pull off cons. Sophie had never had a real first name either. Her mother changed Sophie's name with every con and trained Sophie to be whoever her mother said she was. It wasn't until Sophie was eight or nine that she first named herself Eva and she'd gone through more than a couple self chosen names in the years since.

There was one name though. One name her mother had let slip when Sophie was fourteen and her mother had been high on painkillers after That Incident.

Matthew.

She'd said it like one would say the name of a lover. She'd said it in her true voice.

Sophie hung onto that name through the years. She didn't know if it was a first or last name. She didn't know if it was her father's name. She just knew it was the name of someone her mother had loved.

Sophie liked to pretend that Matthew was her father and instead of being some calculated plan, Sophie had been an accident and her mother had simply loved Matthew too much to abort his child and so had chosen to raise her instead.

Sophie was good at lying, to herself as much as the world. It was one thing her she'd learned from her mother, even if it was the one lesson her mother had always held back to keep Sophie controllable.

There is power in choosing your own identity.

It was a power to make a lie into truth because it was your choice, power to leave behind what you had been to become who you wanted to be.

There was power to find a life better than you were given.

The morning after Lawrence died the smell of breakfast cooking pulled the scattered members of the Leverage team into the kitchen. As Sophie stood just outside the doorway, watching as Eliot and Joey talked and joked as they made breakfast, she thought of it again.

They'd all chosen their identities.

Maybe they weren't exactly who life had made them to be so much as who'd they chosen to become when life left them with few other options.

Instead of a victim Eliot had chosen to become a protector. He'd taken a shattered and broken childhood and built a life out of it for himself and his sister. He chose to fight rather than suffocate, to control his demons rather than surrender.

Instead of getting lost in the shuffle of a world that titled her as "wrong" and giving up, becoming "right" or fading away, Parker had chosen to be wrong. She chose to live the life she wanted, to not care if it alienated most of the world. She was happy that way.

Instead of doing what was expected and following the norm Hardison had chosen to go off the grid and find out what he could do and who he could become.

Instead of dieing, instead of collapsing and imploding onto himself Nate had kept going. When he was destroyed he made a new identity and kept breathing, fighting, putting himself back together piece by piece.

Instead of remaining her mother's prop, a blank slate that had no meaning without her mother Sophie had broken free. She'd made her own identity.

They all had.

By the time breakfast was finished the team had gathered in the kitchen and Eliot had given El a wooden spoon and orders to whack Hardison with it if he touched the waffles. Scott appeared, starting to carry plates to the table in the corner where they'd eaten breakfast the day before. Joey soon followed while Eliot took down plates, cups, and silverware and giving them to the team

The table was round and seemed big enough for just the four member of the Phillips family. The day before Joey had pulled up a fifth matching chair from nearby, squeezing in room for Parker while she and Eliot stood cooking breakfast.

But there was no way it was big enough for the family and the team. The dished out dishware and the plates of steaming food left on the counter clearly meant the team was invited to eat wherever they felt like.

Eliot wasn't given a chance to pick which way to go. As the kids started taking their seats they pulled him to sit down in the extra place set up between them.

Sophie wasn't sure if she was relived to not have to sit through a Normal Family Breakfast or a little resentful they'd been shooed off in favor of normallacy and Eliot had been a part of it.

She still wasn't sure when Joey spoke up, still holding a plate. "El, Marie, please tell your uncle what I always say about meals."

"We eat them together." El and Marie chorused with the kind of deadpan only accomplished by kids repeating something they've been told too many times. "Family eats together."

She nodded, passing the plate to her husband and gesturing to him with her head toward the door behind her. Scott, seeming either used to doing as Joey told when food was involved (a wise choice if Joey was anything like her brother) or giving his wife leeway after the past few days, went without question.

"I'm sitting at the table." Eliot said, his voice somewhere between "What do you want from me?" and the annoyance that Sophie was very familiar with him directing at Parker and Hardison.

She gave Sophie and the rest of the team a pointed look. Eliot's expression was ranging toward the annoyed Hardison's doing something unreasonable again look. "Look, I know you wanted a family breakfast but I ain't kicking the team out. They're my fam-" He stopped.

Oh that was defiantly a glare they didn't see too often, though Joey seemed mostly immune. Sophie absently wondered if Eliot wasn't the only one good at conning or little sisters were just naturally good at tricking somewhat stubborn older brothers into admitting something.

El put down the wooden spoon he'd been trying to twirl, picked up his and Marie's plates. "Come on Mari." He said to her. "We're gonna need a bigger table."

Breakfast reconvened a few minutes later on the back porch, having forsaken the family dinning room in favor of the open air with everyone finding some kind of seating in the vicinity of one another.

It was weird to be eating a "Family Breakfast", but Sophie might admit it was nice. If pressed. Or offered more of the chamomile-mint tea.

Soon the good food (and what, was being a good cook genetic or something? Because Sophie was pretty sure neither Eliot nor Joey had learned to cook as kids) and company the weirdness eased up a little. The chaos of the morning before returned without the shadow of missing members and impending threats.

On the swing on the far side of the porch Joey sat shoulder to shoulder with her husband but not more than a few inches from contact with Eliot on her other side. El and Marie sat on the fence in from of them, double teaming their parents in an attempt to get out of school the next week to recover. It seemed almost cruel to Sophie that they were being so careless when no doubt their parents felt guilty. Then Eliot looked over from where he was chatting with Nate who was sitting nearby to mentioned they seemed to be recovering quickly.

Maybe Joey and Scott were too relived their kids seemed to have come through this mostly untraumatized for the reminder to hurt.

She cocked her head to one side, reading body language, listening for subtext.

If she had to give her grifter's opinion it would seem the entire family had inherited something Sophie was relatively certain came down from when Joey was a kid. Joking about a trauma was the way they acknowledged they'd be okay. It was the things they didn't say that signaled an issue.

They'd be alright.

A little closer to the chair and little table Sophie was eating at Hardison had turned around from his conversation with Parker on the porch stairs to talk to Nate. "Hey Nate? Can I take the van?"

"You finished your part of the wrap up?" Nate asked.

"Last night." Hardison answered.

"How long?" He asked, a reasonable question considering the van and Eliot's truck were the team's only vehicles and they couldn't really walk anywhere from here.

Hardison hesitated, making a little face. "I'm visitin' someone I used to know around here. I might not be back until late."

Nate sighed then dug out and tossed him the keys to the van. "You've got a flight back to Boston tomorrow morning." Nate reminded off hand.

"I know, I know man. I'm the one who hacked it remember?" Eliot said something that made Nate turn his attention back on the other man so he missed Hardison returning to Parker muttering "Yeah dad I did my chores. I promise I'll be home by curfew" to himself.

Sophie just smiled.

"But but I wanted to have adventures with Robin Ford and his merry thieves too!" Marie's voice pitched at the exact level of an eight year old's whine. "You didn't say they were leaving tomorrow. This isn't fair."

Four sets of eyes (and raised eyebrows) looked toward Eliot.

Joey shook her head, turning to Eliot as if she was oblivious of the team's scrutiny. "You should have never told them all those bedtime stories about your team when you were hear a few months ago. I mean I know you missed them but I swear El spent half the summer fighting "Pharmascuiticle Dragons" and rescuing Marie from "Prince Sterling". You get them started brother."

Sophie didn't think she'd actually seen Eliot look embarrassed before.

Though she was pretty sure she now understood how he'd gotten so good at reining in his frustration when it came to Parker and Hardison.

As the team finished giving him a hard time Eliot turned to give a withering glare toward his little sister who only grinned impishly back at him. But just as Eliot was turning back to say something to Nate Sophie just caught the hint of a smile on the Hitter's face that made Sophie's own smile soften.

She didn't need to be a grifter to read it. As annoyed as Eliot acted he was just happy to see Joey smiling.

"Well I can't vouch for my 'merry men'" Nate's voice broke through Sophie's reverie. He was looking over towards El and Marie. "But if your parents don't mind Eliot and I could probably stay for a few days, and you're uncles pretty good at finding adventure."

The kids swarmed their parents.

Eliot turned, giving Nate a smile that made Sophie wonder how she'd missed it as long as she had.

Things quieted down a little bit after that and Sophie drank her tea and read the others and tried not to let herself get bogged down in what she felt about That relationship.

Then Parker slid into the seat next to her and whispered. "I want to date Hardison. Coffee with Peggy went wrong. I know things go wrong but I don't want this to go wrong. You know how make things not go wrong. Can you teach me how to make things not go wrong?"

Sophie looked over to Parker, blinking a few times to try to process before answering slowly. "Alright. How about after he leaves this afternoon."

Parker nodded. "Okay." And slid out of her seat to rejoin the others.

She sipped more of her tea and wondered just what she'd agreed to.

But at least it gave her something to think about. Or try anyway, though it seemed an impending lesson on making relationships work (with _Parker) _wouldn't do the trick of letting her not think about things like the last few days had.

In everything that had happened her anger had been mostly lost, buried under a slow burning hate at the man who'd hurt Eliot, and left to smolder forgotten in the face of eminent danger and pain to the team. It mystified her that she'd simply let it go so easily even when, if she let herself dwell on it she would still be pissed off to all hell.

So she didn't think about it. She finished breakfast and watched with a strange mixture of amusement and heartache as Scott and Nate cleaned up the plates and washed the dishes with a similar level of familiarity with the task. She wandered through the house, Marie's room where she and Parker would be sleeping that night her vauge destination. She didn't really have anything to do until the meeting with Parker later.

She made it to Marie's room and dug through the bag she'd brought, surprised to find the book Eliot had leant her. Apparently she or someone else had shoved it in her bag after Eliot left it when he walked out.

With nothing better to do she sat down and started to reread it.

As the noise and chaos of the house shifted and changed with activities as members of the team and family came and went Sophie relocated to find new quiet places. She wasn't used to being the anti-social one of the group (and when Eliot was the **social** one no less) but considering the circumstances she was relatively sure the others understood. Even a grifter couldn't do much about being the woman your host's beloved brother's boyfriend almost dated. That she wasn't very good with children did not help matters.

It was a little past ten that night when the kids were tucked into bed and Sophie was mostly recovered from an interesting lesson on relationships with Parker when Eliot and Nate set up a chess game in the living room.

After Nate turned on the front porch light.

Hardison still wasn't home yet and Nate and Eliot were waiting up. To make sure son and little brother returned home safely.

It was probably a good thing they'd chosen this family rather than born to it cause that sentence mixed with Nate and Eliot sleeping together? And Hardison and Parker wanting to date eachother.

No they wouldn't all be adding "incest" to their rap sheets. Not at all.

She turned away and climbed the stairs, leaving them to their chess games physical and other. She sighed, thinking about it, soon to be behind closed doors in private for a time and ready to get royally pissed off like she knew she would the moment she let herself think about it properly.

But that was lying to herself. She was still angry and still upset about Nate and Eliot and Months of being played the fool, but mostly she was hurt. That in itself was an oddity. And she was willing to mask and put up with her own hurt which was further strangeness.

She decided it was the job, and everything she'd seen and everything they'd been pulled through. It was hard to be mad at someone you cared about when they were going through what Eliot had been put through recently. She just needed a little space. Some distance would help.

Saturday morning Parker and Hardison flew back to Boston and Sophie got on a plane for Paris. Nate and Eliot would be staying at the Phillips a few more days to "finish the wrap up". Sophie had a feeling neither of them were particularly comfortable with admitting that the visit was turning into the equivalent of Eliot bringing his boyfriend home to meet his parents.

Though lacking living parents, it seemed Marie and El had taken over the role of deciding whether or not Nate was good enough for their Uncle. Even with her situation as it was, it was hard not to smile at what she'd witnessed. After having been given the most child friendly explanation possible to describe how their uncle was dating a guy, El and Marie had started interrogating Nate, tag-team style. The subjects ranged from Nate's policy on ice-cream after dinner, to how many horses he owned, to what kind of movies their uncle liked.

Though Sophie had to explain to Parker afterwards that almost no part of that was typical when dating.

Sophie was halfway to Paris when she realized that for the first time in her life she wasn't already daydreaming about what she'd do when she arrived. Instead, she was wondering if it really was a good idea to leave Hardison and Parker alone for a few days, if Eliot was as alright as he seemed to be, if Nate was actually alright being around a couple of kids or if he'd end up crashing and drinking.

She wasn't thinking about the shopping or the shoes. She was thinking about her family. And really, even if she'd never used that term for them before, it was the only way she knew to describe them, and she suspected they were the reason why her priorities and feelings were all out of order. She'd never had a family before, and she wasn't really sure what to do about having one now.

It wasn't until she was riding towards her hotel, that she realized that while she might be trying to give herself a little bit of space and perspective, Paris wasn't where she wanted to do it.

It was only a few hours later that she was on another plane back to the US, back to Kentucky. She landed and hired a car to take her to the little town called Lawrence.

She had a plan. It had been a long time since she'd done a solo con. But she been successful in sweet talking her way into the good graces of a couple members of the Lawrence family. And to be honest, the damage she could do wasn't quite as widespread as that of two others in her family.

She stayed two days, poking around, grifting her way in and out of conversations, gathering information, making two lists of names.

Wednesday morning, Sophie arrived back in Boston. She made her way to Nate's apartment for the weekly staff meeting he hosted in his living room.

The rest of the team had gathered and were sorting through the pre-staff-meeting chaos when she arrived. There were a few happy greetings thrown her way, They'd known she'd be back.

If she was honest with herself she'd known she'd be back too.

Things slipped into the normal routine quickly. Eliot was grumbling about meetings being a waste of time, Hardison was taking personal offense to that, and Parker was moving in Simon and cooking popcorn in Nate's microwave. Apparently she'd remembered that from last week.

Sophie went through her own normal routine, getting some tea and grabbing the box of wafers she kept on hand. It had been a long time since breakfast.

As she walked through her routine, she let her hands work, slipping copies of her lists into Parker and Hardison's pockets. They'd find them later. Parker's "bad" list was annotated with notes on the items of value owned by the various corrupt members of the Lawrence family. She indicated the businesses they owned on Hardison's and left the rest up to his imagination.

A week later, after the two thieves disappeared over the weekend, Sophie got a news alert from Hardison. It was an article from a small Kentucky paper about a series of disasters and thefts that had bankrupted more than a dozen members of the extended Lawrence family.

Later, Sophie would check the My Sister's Keeper website, to find it had a new layout and was announcing that, due to the generous donations of several individuals, the fund would be increasing the number of scholarships given out every year.

None of them spoke about the occurrence in Kentucky, but when the following Friday rolled around, Eliot told the crew they all needed a change of pace from pizza, beer, and leaving Nate's apartment a wreck. He gave them an address and a time, and left, muttering about needing to go grocery shopping.

The lavish dinner they shared at Eliot's place that night said enough.

Two weeks after everything had gone down in the little town, after Eliot's stepfather came back and a family matter became a matter for families, after Sophie found out, and Eliot had killed, and everything that had happened, sitting around a little table in Eliot's loft, laughing and talking like nothing had changed, Sophie found she was ready to accept. Something had changed. For better, for worse, something had changed and she might as well acknowledge it and move on. (Seems she'd changed as well. They all had.)

Taking advantage of a lull in the normal conversation and chaos, as everyone was oohing and awing over the desserts Eliot had set before them, Sophie raised her glass. "To family?"

There was an awkward moment where the others reacted a word they almost never spoke out loud to describe themselves, even if it had been obvious for a while.

Then Eliot raised his own glass. "What she said."

The others responded a moment later, chorusing. "To family."

They toasted and dug into their desserts, conversation coming back and laughter restarting and Sophie just smiled.

She may have never known her father. She may have left her mother, family, and anything resembling her "true" identity behind her when she ran off at fourteen.

But there was power in choosing your own identity, and choosing your family. Where they came from was different as the people they'd been made to be, but together they'd figure out where to go next.

And really, that was the important part.


End file.
